Best of 2020 – Animated Short Film

6 years ago

Throughout the year we have marked our weeks with a selection of the best Short Films of the moment. Now it’s time to review the most beautiful and exciting ones.

Hair Love, the touching short nominated for an Oscar

Directed by Matthew A. Cherry, Everett Downing Jr. and Bruce W. Smith, Hair Love is the short film produced by Sony Picture Animation that won the Best Animated Short Film category at the 2020 Academy Awards Oscars. Hair Love manages to get right to the heart of everyone by telling a story about family and black culture.

“Nobody is Normal”, the beauty of different

Feeling different from others is unpleasant, it makes us feel wrong, excluded and inadequate. Often, when we come face to face with our insecurities, thinking positive or asking for help seems impossible, but we must always remember that we are not alone.
Nobody is Normal, the new campaign of Childline – a free advice service for children and young people in the UK – sends a positive message and normalizes diversity.

The Grand Budapest Hotel animated storyboard

American director Wes Anderson has released part of the original storyboard from his 2014 smash hit, The Grand Budapest Hotel. This storyboard video is a five-minute excerpt showing the film’s opening shots, various sketches of the hotel’s façade, the building’s interior and the characters that inhabit it.

Awkward: a normal moment of embarrassment

You only have to watch this short film to realize that we experience similar situations every day. Who hasn’t experienced a moment of embarrassment in a lift?
The illustrator and animator Nata Metlukh has managed to collect all the moments of normal embarrassment in a beautiful animated short film entitled simply Awkward.

“Fire (Pozar)”, David Lynch’s new short film

After five years of work, David Lynch has released Fire (Pozar) on YouTube. Polish pianist and composer Marek Zebrowski, the Penderecki String Quartet and Japanese animator Noriko Miyakawa were involved in this five-year short film.

“Hermann”, a touching true story

Made by the Spanish studio 23lunes, the short film Hermann tells the story of an elderly violinist suffering from Alzheimer’s who plays every day from his balcony.
Director Jordi García was inspired by a true story from Spain, in the Galician city of Vigo, during the lockdown.

“Five minute to sea”, the short film by Natalia Mirzoyan

Five minutes to sea is Natalia Mirzoyan‘s animated short film that sums up our childhood at the sea. A simple but impactful short film, it invites us to reconsider our perception of time and old age and tells us how boredom can stimulate the imagination.

The Coin by Siqi Song – New Year’s traditions

Made entirely in stop-motion, The Coin by Siqi Song tells us the story of a long journey away from home, evokes the feelings of strangeness and bewilderment in an unknown country, the memory of the family, of China and the traditions for the New Year.
The Coin was produced by Diana Ward and Ashim Ahuja and presented by PROJECT INVOLVE, a project of FILM INDEPENDENT, one of the most important non-profit organizations in the world supporting independent cinema.

“Selfish”, a short against the pollution of the oceans

Selfish is a short film by Chen, PoChien that aims to make us reflect on the amount of plastic found on our beaches and in our seas. The short film has toured the world and won several awards such as “Best Animation” at the Borrego Springs Film Festival, “Best Animation” at the Ocean City Film Festival and “Best Animated Micro Film” at the Oregon short film festival, all in 2020.