Through the Looking Glass

Always a joy to put together, Flatpack’s roundup of new animation is consistently one of our most popular programmes.

Always a joy to put together, Flatpack’s roundup of new animation is consistently one of our most popular programmes. A mixtape of hand-drawn, 3D, stop-motion and pixilation, this year’s crop explores unfamiliar worlds from the sublime to the ridiculous, where people produce lightbulbs from their mouths (Juan Pablo Zaramella’s Luminaris), a boy attempts to rescue his ungrateful brother from inside a whale (Julia Pott’s Belly, pictured), and talking insects struggle to survive in post-apocalyptic realms (Isamu Hirabayashi’s 663114). It’s not all a surrealist playground though. Graduates Natalie Bettelheim and Sharon Michaeli offer a sweet tale of a mother accepting her baby’s slightly feral ways, and Kangmin Kim’s 38-39°C has a man transported back to his childhood by an intoxicating steam-bath.