We’ve emerged from under the pile of 2,400 entries to put together a series of screenings that showcase the best 86 new films from 41 countries around the world. They can be funny, dramatic, bizarre, subdued, scary or autobiographical. The one thing they have in common is that we think they’re the pick of the crop. 8 international competition programmes. Every technique, every genre, every style – this is your annual window into the international indie animation universe.

This programme is our annual survey of abstract and experimental animation. Animators working in this field employ every technique from hand-drawn ‘musical scores’ all the way across the scale to high definition, computer assisted image making. These 17 short films share a pure love of animated movement and an artist’s eye for filling the screen, harnessing colour and creating non-narrative imagery.

Total running time: approx 75 mins

For more information please visit http://www.liaf.org.uk/

Inner Ray

The movement of light due to reflection, transmission, and refraction that occurs on the surface and inside of a diamond.

Japan 2023 Dir: Kazuhiko Kobayashi 2’55

Motus

A stop-motion animation where conception, degradation and regeneration cohabit in a unique way. A creation on a metal sheet using ethanol as the raw material.

Portugal 2023 Dir: Nelson Nogueira Fernandes 4’10

Happy Doom

A short, fast-paced audiovisual ode to the hypnotic power of colour and vertigo.

Austria 2023 Dir: Billy Roisz 3’15

Vision

Eyes are magical spheres that make up dreams and retain memories. In our eyes, the visions of the within and of the beyond overlap. New worlds come to be when our gazes meet.

Japan 2023 Dir: Çağıl Harmandar 7’20

Telia

A lively world under a microscope where different microorganisms are born, mating and decaying.

Hong Kong 2023 Dir: Chun Yee Chen, Kam Tan Kwun, Jia Yi Zhang 3’20

Silent Chirping of Invisible Digits

Like a single film frame, insects flash for the fraction of a second, only to immediately withdraw from the field of vision again.

Austria 2023 Dir: Vera Sebert 10’10

Abstract Colour Fields

A playful clash of colour fields and expressive painterly marks set to original music by musician David J Allardice.

Australia 2023 Dir: Sabrina Schmid 2’50

Beardiful Tone

A playful film made with the filmmakers real beard and moustache.

USA 2022 Dir: Masashi Yamamoto 1’30

The Artist in the Machine

What happens when an AI is entrusted with the creation of art?

Austria 2022 Dir: Claudia Larcher 3’25

Observatory

Light and colours are melting, transforming, pulsating. A play between abstraction and figurativeness, accompanying the music of Danish sound artist Sofie Birch.

Poland 2022 Dir: Wiesława Ruta 5’45

Makulatour

Based on a four-to-the-floor beat and a wall of sound. A landscape full of motion and colour to offer a new perspective.

Germany 2022 Dir: Tim Markgraf 5’50

Burnt Fox

Sounds turn into abstract images creating a tightly connected audiovisual experience.

Hong Kong 2023 Dir: Jaron Kuehmstedt, Lok Tung Kwan, Hiu Yin Tse, Shuxin Wang 3’10

Overheating

A musically synchronised film that draws inspiration from the Portuguese word, “verão" (summer). Rising temperatures within a digital domain, yielding errors, crashes, glitches, and malfunctions.

Hong Kong 2023 Dir: Jim Chung, Lizzy Bovee, Yuna Tang, Nathan Yeom 3’20

Deep Breath

During the night a form tries to fall asleep. Struggling to maintain control, it gets trapped into vicious cycles of abstract madness, visually and audibly growing into a visceral and bizarre conflict between compression and decompression.

Portugal 2022 Dir: Leonor Pacheco 4’05

Progress

An attempt to see the past by looking at the present. The origin, growth and progress of the line in the painting by Paul Klee.

Russia 2022 Dir: Saule Matvienko 1’45

'Prototipo

A perception shifting audiovisual work exploding with saturated light, colour, movement and synaesthetic sound.

Austria 2023 Dir: Tina Frank, General Magic 4’15

O/S

Taking inspiration from 20th-century avant-garde experiments in graphical sound generation, the entire image in O/S functions as an optical soundtrack. Abstract motion becomes sound.

Hong Kong 2023 Dir: Max Hattler 4’45