2024 – 2025 Annual Winners
&
2025 Annual Official Selection
Best Stop Motion
of the year
Foil Guy vs ANVIL
Malcolm Lamont
Best AI Animation
of the year
Sakura Gansha
Sijin Liu
Best 2D Animation
of the year
Snow Bear
Aaron Blaise
Best 3D Animation
of the year
Hept
Jorge Baldeon
2025 Annual Official Selection
Snow Bear
When a lonely polar bear can’t find a friend…. he makes one.
Set in a rapidly changing world, Snow Bear tells the story of a polar bear in an unforgiving environment on his quest to find a friend.
This independently produced 2D hand drawn film was painstakingly created entirely by Aaron Blaise over 3 years.
With Aaron’s lifelong dedication to studying, drawing, and animating animals, the adventure is infused with humor, relatability, and emotional depth in the tradition of classic animated films.
Director: Aaron Blaise
Runtime: 11:29
Foil Guy vs ANVIL
Foil Guy is alive! What happens when the all-time greatest stop motion aluminum foil guy comes up against an unstoppable force… and who will prevail!?
Director: Malcolm Lamont
Runtime: 00:57
Stoned for Christmas
“Stoned for Christmas” is a multimedia whirlwind and a love letter to weed. Built like a blunt rotation, “Stoned for Christmas” cycles through a weed courier’s Christmastime deliveries with each vignette in a different style of animation. The result is a delightfully surrealist trip, one that represents the chaos of NYC, the ups and downs of a high, and the unique unpredictability of navigating the world while trans.
Director: Morgan Young
Runtime: 14:21
I Took My Avocado to Aspen Colorado
A “mobbed up” gopher treats his avocado associate to a lavish weekend of private planes, fancy hotels and expensive gifts, lulling the unsuspecting fruit into a blissful stupor, before tossing him off a high-rise balcony. This animated evolution of a film-within-a-film is a stop-motion journey filled with danger, intrigue and rhymes.
Director: Mark Roberts
Runtime: 05:27
Hept
In a post-apocalyptic world, a famished man encounters an abandoned house containing a bountiful feast. Despite mounting suspicion and unease, he continues to consume the enigmatic food. His fears are confirmed when he hears a noise and investigates, leading to a fateful encounter in the depths of the house.
Director: Jorge Baldeon
Runtime: 13:40
Sakura Gansha
Sakura Gansha (Cherry Blossom Facial) is a music video performed by Siri Lee and directed by Sijin, created in collaboration with AI artist Ruby Nian and animator Hsin Hsin.
Blending Showa-era aesthetics with handcrafted techniques, AI generation and live action, the piece explores female sexual autonomy through stylised symbolism and layered media.
Set to a playful enka-inspired track, the visuals feature floral and fruit motifs—especially mangoes, a Japanese slang for female genitalia—used to suggest desire without direct exposure.
The video ends not with a graphic release, but with an eruption of cherry blossoms—a climax that is floral, symbolic, and entirely led by the female subject.
Director: Sijin Liu
Runtime: 03:11
Rubber on the Ropes
A rubbery cartoon character has to win in a boxing match against a real boxer.
Director: Erim “Xolo” Cetinel
Runtime: 03:05
The Corridor
A body that is completely disjointed is trying to put its pieces back together. On this path, it succeeds in creating a collage of itself.
Director: Kourosh Mohammadi
Runtime: 08:36
Boys Night in Sidera Institute
Two scientists roam in the institute they work for, way past curfew.
Director: Adam Musa Othman
Runtime: 06:51
The Lonely Life of Lint
In the dryer vent of the corner laundromat, a solitary lint creature makes its home. One night, while cleaning the lint trap, the creature makes an unexpected discovery. Filled with a newfound awareness of its own isolation, the creature embarks on a quest for companionship.
Director: Sarah Sklar
Runtime: 03:50