The stages of puberty are shown in flowing graphic lines with smooth metamorphosis in this stunning animation. Warning: contains nudity. Written and animated by Alexander Gellner with a well matched soundtrack by Niklas Kröger. Alexander is a co-founder of the bitteschoen.tv studio in Berlin, Germany. He worked on this animation in his spare time and estimates it involved about seven weeks of drawing spread over a year and a half.

More info: bitteschoen.tv / Alexander Gellner blog

Simple line drawings tell a poignant story. Written and directed by Swiss animator Rafael Sommerhalder at the Royal College of Art, London. It was the Winner of the 2008 Adobe Design Achievement Award.

More info at www.crictor.ch.

Caroline Leaf etched the drawings directly onto tinted 70 mm film. The story is about two sisters: Viola, who writes novels in a dark room, and Marie, her only companion. Viola is disfigured and relies on her sister to take care of her. When a stranger turns up at their door, the sisters’ quiet lives are disrupted and their routine turns to chaos.

This is an animation full of emotion. It was made and shown at the Leipzig International Art Residency Program in Leipzig, Germany.

In her book Images/Words Katie says: “I came to Leipzig to make something, an animation specifically, and I made it. I’ve spent the past month trying to figure out how to explain it, how to let others inside of it, how to convince myself that it is what it is for a reason. I looked anxiously, painfully, for meaning in what I had created, but I understand now… Meaning doesn’t live inside art.

For more information go to katiearmstrong.com

A muscular figure struggles to push a huge rock up a slope. The film received an Oscar nomination. This story is told without words. Marcell Jankovics is a Hungarian graphic artist, cartoon director, animator and author.

An amusing story told with pencil animation animation and sound effects. A fussy zoo keeper upsets the animals but he gets his comeuppance. It won won a gold award for animation at the student Oscars 2008.

Feet of Song explores the African rhythms of the talking drum and the guitar. The animated stylised figures move beautifully in time with the music. Erica Russell researched extensively for her film in dance, music, African masks, sculpture and body painting.

Mark Baker has a distinctive style of his own. A sea captain and his one-man crew have to contend not only with pirates but with a feisty young woman whom they misguidedly save from drowning. It was nominated for an Oscar in 1999.

The story follows the experiences of a rocking chair, from its creation from a tree through the various families whose homes it is used in. It won the 1981 Academy Award for Animated Short Film.

A character is drawn then brushed away only to return and endure repeated clashes with the creator. It won the Oscar for Best Animated short in 1991.