Death is Smoking My Cigars

Hedgehog's Home(hr)

In a lush and lively forest lives a hedgehog. He is at once admired, respected and envied by the other animals. However, Hedgehog’s unwavering devotion to his home annoys and mystifies a quartet of insatiable beasts: a cunning fox, an angry wolf, a gluttonous bear and a muddy boar. Together, the haughty brutes march off towards Hedgehog’s home to see just what is so precious about this “castle, shiny and huge.” What they find amazes them and sparks a tense and prickly standoff.

A Child's Garden of Poetry(en)

Poems by some of the greatest writers of all time are brought to life through lyrical animation and readings by some of today’s most respected performers.

The Whimsical Council(fr)

A young man opens the window of his attic room and discovers a lunar landscape which submerges him and threatens to imprison him in an eternal sheet of ice. He closes the window to escape this vision and hears from deep inside his soul the sound of a poem being sung.

Pour ne pas oublier l'invisible(fr)

A Thousand and One Nights(cs)

Five different exploits of Sinbad the sailor where he gets mixed up with the pretty daughters of exotic potentates, with powerful monsters that threaten his existence, and with all sorts of teeming jungle life.

The Spring Night(ru)

A spring night is a poetic film which is based on the motives of the poem by V. Lugovsky. The film is devoted to the theme of fidelity to the battle traditions of revolutionary past, to the theme of human happiness the sense of it in the battle for high ideals.

Lines(en)

Six poems written by six young prisoners animated to tell their stories, thoughts, fears and hopes.

Afterimages(en)

A film-poem created for Counterclock Journal's 2023 Patchwork: Film x Poetry fellowship, featuring an original poem by Mackenzie Duan and animation by Evan Bode.

Two Faces(en)

Loose impressionistic brushstrokes sketch a series of portraits of two faces, one male and one female, while the verse on the soundtrack tells the tale of both one and a thousand relationships.

The Blue Years(es)

Rubén tries to describe the color blue as "The color of dreams, of art, of the ocean and of the firmament", thereby unleashing half a century of poetry.

Night on the Galactic Railroad(ja)

Giovanni currently lives a dreary life of near non-stop work. At school, his peers ridicule him incessantly, and his employer at work is distant and cold. As his isolation from society becomes unbearable, he suddenly finds himself on a train heading far away from his miserable home. Accompanied by Campanella, an acquaintance from school, Giovanni embarks on a journey that will define the rest of his life.

Dog Years(en)

An animated poem about a dog, her human, and the consequences of a nasty habit.

Synapses(en)

Réne Manzor's debut short, a surreal story about a tramp trying to build a road through the desert.

A l'Aube d'un Renouveau(fr)

In this farewell letter to Ana (aka Anorexia), I reveal the suffering associated with this illness. I sincerely express my deep desire to regain my freedom and vitality by sharing not only my progress but also my relapses. Through the interweaving of drawings and poetry, I share this quest for reconstruction, which I hope will help raise awareness of this mental illness and bring a little hope to people affected by it and those around them.

The Young Lady and the Cellist(fr)

A cellist attempts to rescue a woman swept out to sea, only to find he must battle a series of overly possesive sea creatures.

You, the Choice of My Parents(to)

A poetic journey through the life of a woman going through an arranged marriage, animated on traditional Tongan Cloth called Ngatu.

Unmistaken Hands: Ex Voto F.H.(en)

In a realm beyond the senses, plants interact with surreal cinematography to chart the course of our character: an entity said to embody the life and work of Felisberto Hernández, Uruguayan father of magical realism. Through this journey, we are confronted with an open-ended experience questioning the nature of musicality versus cinematography, entity versus aberration, and self versus space, in a self-referential, blurry, digital and mystical setting.

Autumn(ru)

The third film of the biographical cycle based on Pushkin's drawings and texts.

Sultana's Dream(es)

Inés sets out on a voyage of discovery around India in search of Ladyland, the Utopian land of women.

相思（上）(zh)

The Edge of Love(en)

When the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas and his flirtatious wife Caitlin sweep into war-torn London, the last thing they expect is to bump into Dylan's childhood sweetheart Vera. Despite her joy at seeing Dylan after so many years, Vera is swept off her feet by a dashing officer, William Killick, and finds herself torn between the open adoration of her new found beau and the wily charms of the exotic Welshman.

Educating Rita(en)

Rita, a witty 26-year-old hairdresser, wants to 'discover' herself, so she joins the Open University where she meets the disillusioned professor of literature, Dr. Frank Bryant. His marriage has failed, his new girlfriend is having an affair with his best friend and he can't get through the day without downing a bottle or two of whisky. What Frank needs is a challenge... and along comes Rita.

Tales of Terror(en)

Three stories adapted from the work of Edgar Allen Poe: 1) A man and his daughter are reunited, but the blame for the death of his wife hangs over them, unresolved. 2) A derelict challenges the local wine-tasting champion to a competition, but finds the man's attention to his wife worthy of more dramatic action. 3) A man dying and in great pain agrees to be hypnotized at the moment of death, with unexpected consequences.

Happythankyoumoreplease(en)

Captures a generational moment - young people on the cusp of truly growing up, tiring of their reflexive cynicism, each in their own ways struggling to connect and define what it means to love and be loved. Six New Yorkers juggle love, friendship, and the keenly challenging specter of adulthood. Sam Wexler is a struggling writer who's having a particularly bad day. When a young boy gets separated from his family on the subway, Sam makes the questionable decision to bring the child back to his apartment and thus begins a rewarding, yet complicated, friendship. Sam's life revolves around his friends — Annie, whose self-image keeps her from commitment; Charlie and Mary Catherine, a couple whose possible move to Los Angeles tests their relationship; and Mississippi, a cabaret singer who catches Sam's eye.

Great Expectations(en)

Loosely based on the Charles Dickens' classic novel, "Great Expectations" is a sensual tale of a young man's unforgettable passage into manhood, and the three individuals who will undeniably change his life forever. Through the surprising interactions of these vivid characters, "Great Expectations" takes a unique and contemporary look at life's great coincidences.

I'm Thinking of Ending Things(en)

Nothing is as it seems when a woman experiencing misgivings about her new boyfriend joins him on a road trip to meet his parents at their remote farm.

Stranger Than Fiction(en)

Harold Crick is a lonely IRS agent whose mundane existence is transformed when he hears a mysterious voice narrating his life.

Neverwas(en)

Zach Riley is a psychiatrist, who leaves a job at a prestigious university, to take up a job at the privately run mental institution, Millwood. What he doesn't reveal at the time of his appointment is that this was the very place where his novelist father, T.L. Pierson, spent many years of his life.

Gilbert(en)

The life and career of one of comedy's most inimitable modern voices, Mr. Gilbert Gottfried.

When Nietzsche Wept(en)

Viennese doctor Josef Bruer meets with philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche to help him deal with his despair.

Black Widow(en)

Federal agent Alexandra Barnes believes that Catherine Petersen is a serial killer who marries rich men and then murders them for their money. But since Catherine is seemingly a master of disguise and has multiple identities, Alexandra can't prove anything with conventional detective work. With no other option, she goes undercover, pursuing the same man as Catherine, and hoping that Catherine will slip up and reveal her true identity.

Call Me Crazy: A Five Film(en)

A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness.

High Strung(en)

Thane Furrows, an extremely cynical but unintentionally hilarious children's book writer, wakes up one morning, and, since pretty much everyone and everything annoys him, begins another day of complaining to himself. However, the day proves to be much different than normal when Thane begins to recieve strange phone calls, letters, and voices in his head, all indicating that something will happen at 8 o'clock. As the day goes on, Thane rants and raves about the things that annoy him, as the clock slowly ticks closer and closer to his destiny.

I Am Heath Ledger(en)

The life and career of an actor, artist, and icon. His own journey through his own camera.

The Fearless Vampire Killers(en)

A noted professor and his dim-witted apprentice fall prey to their inquiring vampires, while on the trail of the ominous damsel in distress.

The Last Word(en)

An odd-but-gifted poet, Evan Merck makes his living writing suicide notes for the soon-to-be departed. So when he meets Charlotte, the free-spirited sister of his latest client, Evan has no choice but to lie about his relationship to her late, lamented brother.

Effie Gray(en)

A look at the mysterious relationship between Victorian art critic John Ruskin and his teenage bride Effie Gray.

Anomalisa(en)

An inspirational speaker becomes reinvigorated after meeting a lively woman who shakes up his mundane existence.

Struggle: The Life and Lost Art of Szukalski(en)

Artists in LA discover the work of forgotten Polish sculptor Stanislav Szukalski, a mad genius whose true story unfolds chapter by astounding chapter.

Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction(en)

An impressionistic portrait of the iconic actor Harry Dean Stanton comprised of intimate moments, film clips from some of his 250 films and his renditions of American folk songs.