When the Shadows Yearn to Breathe

The journey of 3-year-old Tomy into the magical clown-world beyond his bedroom-wall and his struggle to come back in one piece.

Two friends steal a crystal ball in an antique store, but the owner takes cruel revenge using a magic chess set.

A professional cult infiltrator is hired to extract his client's mind-controlled daughter from a dangerous group.

Tony's father Sam, abducted by aliens three years earlier, returns to earth and seeks out his wife and son, but Rachel has since been living with Joe and the reunion is awkward. Joe doesn't trust Sam, and Rachel can't quite decide what her feelings are for her two men. Sam is not the same as when he left, and he begins affecting Tony in frightening ways.

Daz finds an SD card in the middle of the woods.

Janky and strange computer animated adventures of a pyromaniac admiral.

Admiral Flipside is one crazy sea-dog. Driven by a darker than black alter-ego he embarks upon a bizarre voyage of destruction and self discovery. Haunted by his subconscious he is driven by ghostly manifestations into a surreal world of circus and theatre inspired by Sebastian Brant’s 1494 book ‘Das Narrenschyff’ (The Ship of Fools). Unbeknown to him he is the leading actor in a stage play based on the ship of fools. He leads the witless fools on a disastrous voyage to find ‘Narragonia’ (Fools Utopia). Flipside finds himself the sole survivor after the ship is set upon by fire breathing monsters from the deep. He is washed up on the very beach that he left many years ago, only to discover his innocence waiting for him. Here at last, after so many long years searching, he is forced to confront the grim reality that is himself. These short films combine computer animation, traditional animation, video and concepts of theatre to produce a bizarre visual story.

A sexual reverie unfolds over the course of one ethereal night. Characters wander through an erotic maze of love and lust, blurring the lines between wet dream and lucid nightmare as a macabre, erotic stage performance sends a ripple of lustful desires through its audience and performers.

Wayward boy punishes his mother’s lover. Beauty and horror fondle each other. Young gods callously abjure conventional morality. Death goes whoring in child’s guise.

Host Scott Forrest presents a curated compilation of eight independent short films in this rapid-fire science-fiction feature. Genres collide, narratives twist, aesthetics clash, and even humor, both campy and dystopian, showcase the vast creative possibilities of each story's individual world, offering the viewer a brief glimpse into the lives of every character's attempt to survive the otherworldly chaos around them. Released in 2001, the selected shorts span original creation dates of 1997 to 2001; most of the featured filmmakers also appear as themselves in short video interviews to talk about their inspirations, creative process and motivations while working on their individual shorts.

A short film, made at the University of York, about a man who starts to hear noises in his Tang Hall house...