The wow+flutter programme concentrates on “progressive motion graphics”, which can include pretty much anything, while other parts of the festival are more specific: wavelength for music videos, j-star for japanese shorts etc. You can check out the entire list of w+f films are here, but these are my favourites:

Ubik: voxel
I’m a fan of the augmented reality style when it’s done well; and it certainly is here. Striking abstract graphics combine with a haunting location.

Impactist: Parallelostory
A beautifully subtle animation style with a 50’s influenced colour and texture palette.

Bruno Dicolla: Return as an Animal
This featured a striking high-contrast rotoscoped style that looked great on the big screen. Unfortunately the shimmering starfield effect is a little lost in the on-line version. I could almost hear art directors reaching for their iPhones to jot down “must copy this at next available opportunity”.

Christian Schlaeffer: Agent Orange Ready
A dark, disturbing animation in a comic style.

The Lows

Ironically I found the most obviously “digital” films the most disappointing. There was a little too much in the Chris Cunningham inspired glitchy, razor-cut, super-shiny organic/mechanic vernacular. And there was also one film – which I won’t name – that looked shockingly like a Tia Maria commercial. Still, in general the signal to noise ratio was very good.

The Laughs

Some of the most memorable films are those with a punchline; the short film format is a great way of getting a laugh with a simple, funny idea. There’s no risk of stretching it too thin.

Mato Atom: Docking
A laugh-out-loud concept executed nicely and succintly, and it even goes out with an anti-war punchline.

So there you are; just 5 of the 30+ shorts that were shown. If you’re into animation or cutting-edge digital film-making, I’d recommend catching a onedotzero screening wherever you can, either in London or on one of the tour locations.