The Fable of the Traveling Salesman

An animated short film about a man struggling against the storm. Suddenly he discovers that not everybody is affected by the wind...

Germany, 1945. World War II is nearing its climactic end. Five-year-old Sophie and her parents are refugees fleeing from the advancing Red Army. They hide in a hotel, where they encounter Nazi officer Scharf and Hitler Youth member Beckmann. As the Russians come closer, Sophie falls into a lift and is knocked unconscious. Meanwhile, Scharf accidentally kills Sophie’s mother and Wassily, a paratrooper, kills her father. Time passes and teenage Sophie works for Soviet soldiers as a kitchen maid in the hotel. Food sometimes disappears, but Sophie finds the culprit: Beckmann, who has been hiding in a corridor beneath the hotel since the war ended. As an adult, Sophie reluctantly marries Wassily and develops a relationship with Beckmann. Decades go by; the Russians leave and Scharf takes over the hotel. Sophie convinces Beckmann to leave, and the pair head for the North Sea, turning their backs on the hotel and its memories.

Now aged 17, Antoine Doinel works in a factory which makes records. At a music concert, he meets a girl his own age, Colette, and falls in love with her. Later, Antoine goes to extraordinary lengths to please his new girlfriend and her parents, but Colette still only regards him as a casual friend. First segment of “Love at Twenty” (1962).

Gerald is dealing with an unwanted sex change.

Animator Ryan Larkin does a visual improvisation to music performed by a popular group presented as sidewalk entertainers. His take-off point is the music, but his own beat is more boisterous than that of the musicians. The illustrations range from convoluted abstractions to caricatures of familiar rituals. Without words.

An educational short film featuring the character of Luxo Jr. demonstrating the concept of "front" and "back."

School audition in the 80's. Steve has been training very hard, but singing in front of an audience is not easy. It might be easier to behind the curtain.

A short four-minute concept film unveiled in surprise at Studio SHAFT's 40th anniversary event in winter 2015, Madogatari. The first animated Puella Magi Madoka Magica work since Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie: Rebellion, it features the return of the full Madoka Magica cast and staff.

An animated short film from 1987 that deals with the incarceration of a man in a dark cell from where there is no escape.

In the modern village of the future, everything is mechanized, but the dreams of the village musician remain the same. He wants to become an artist. Thanks to the fact that an Art Nouveau goddess gave him a helping hand, Janko Muzykant saves his life and escapes from the village on a Pegasus.

This lavishly embellished, comically operetta CGI fantasy story takes place in the Indian Ocean, where a flock of “piranha birds” has settled on the back of an octopus. When an octopus is starved, it feeds on birds on its back, but because it is already threatened with extinction, they decide to send a bottle across the sea with a call for help.