EIFF 2025 Animated Shorts Selection

Here are all of the wonderful animated shorts on display this year at the Edinburgh International Film Festival!

They (2025), dir. Renée Zellweger

What an odorous little number from first-time director Renée Zellweger! The Earth farts. The dog farts, oh, and sharts. Everyone releases some kind of stinky, toxic gas whenever they’re mean. They’re all purple, and round, and ever so endearing. Sure, ‘They’ is kind of just a cat poster, a pointed finger with a concerned emoji face telling you to be nice, but Cbeebies agitprop is necessary, especially in a time such as this, and if anyone is going to get through to the Facebook mums it’s Bridget Jones herself.

Distance to the Moon (2025), dir. Sacha Kyle, Victoria Watson

The tactility here is the real showstopper. You can see the fluff from the tall BFG-type figure crumple and blow in the void shot-to-shot, and his little paper mache bug scuttles around on what I’m assuming is some sort of muddy residue. As a work of solely design, it’s almost flawless. The ladder imagery, however, is a bit well-worn, and while it makes good use of its score, I found it crescendos too slight and too often. Post-industrial stop-motion needs more looking into.

How a River Is Born (2025), dir. Luma Flôres

Could so easily make jokes about how this plays like a ‘literally me’ moment, as we watch a woman give head to a mountain lady, rest on her mountain nipples, and rock her mountain world, some kind of freak Lava fan-fiction, but its tenderness is beautiful to watch, its art-style is so fluid, and it gets pretty poetic, even if it keeps itself a little too broad, and so I’ll refrain. However,

Dollhouse Elephant (2025), dir. Jenny Jokola

It’ll take five seconds to ask ‘why isn’t everyone doing it like this?’ and a further five seconds to realise ‘oh, because it’d take hundreds of years.’ And yet. That effort proves itself worthwhile time and again. Jokela has crafted this painted odyssey of a community ecosystem on the brink of collapse, and it’s an absolute delight to behold. See it for the lady who leaves her boyfriend for a flower, and the man who can’t stop stinking up his soup.

Witness: An Organima Film (2025), dir. Nik Arthur

Academic, beyond all else. Animation stripped of everything but motion remains animated, and nature, stripped of traditional time, is animation in its purest form. The rock stuff broke my brain.

Balconada (2025), dir. Iva Tokmakchieva

There has not been a more musical COVID movie than ‘Balconada’. For a while, all we had was the rhythm of songs we’ve already heard to try to keep us moving and connected in a time where we could only partly see each other out of our windows, over the streets, and in our balconies. This beautifully stylised wonderment is a testament to music as connective tissue, and how a song can keep us romantic and alive, when it hits its peak, wow. Unlikely to be a more soaring moment in a film all year.

Force Times Displacement (2025), dir. Angel Wu

Homework time. I say that, but Angel Wu’s ‘Force Times Displacement’ is of such denseness that it’s probably more like thesis time. Essayist in its structure, largely even over graph paper, this intriguing albeit very confusing piece about a worker worshipping a strange shrine of some sort has some truly breathtaking breaks in form that took me aback. Understanding comes secondary to feeling, and this feels like something truly special.

Wednesdays with Gramps (2025), dir. Chris and Justin Copeland

Dreamworks latest short is an 8-bit party pop about a young boy connecting with his grandad, which looks like it’s going to play out like Homer vs Bart in ‘Moaning Lisa’, but instead becomes a sweet reminder that although much older, generations can still connect and find shared experiences in the places they expect to have to hide. Aesthetically gameified perfectly, with some great comedic tempo, this gorgeous slice of New York living is a wonderfully sweet treat, with one fake-out that sadly muddies the ending a little. Recommended. 

Tsuna the empty can-Meatball and Spaghetti- (2025), dir. Iku Ogawa

In terms of spaghetti and meatball bits, you can’t really get much better than this. Delightfully cosy. Reminds me of one of those 2 minute kid shorts animated series that will sometimes pop up on Netflix that somehow have 19 seasons and it’s always cute things doing cute things (complementary). ‘Spectacular, give me 14 of them right now,’ and such.

Éiru (2025), dir. Giovanni Ferrari

Cartoon Saloon is back with another gorgeous folkloric tale of women breaking through tradition, fighting the warmongering patriarchy, and birthing something entirely new, and, as per usual, I was crying like a little baby. Aficionados may worry that this is narratively trodden territory for Ireland’s apex animation studio, and this is true, though the niche they’ve carved out for themselves is still unlike anything else the world over. It doesn’t look like the watering well will ever run dry. Predictably, the best of the lot.

And that's all folks! See you again next year!