Each year our animation programme provides one of the best opportunities to introduce our youngest friends to the pleasures of international cinema and the NZIFF experience. NZIFF 2016 presents not one but two Animation for Kids collections – with each film guaranteed to amuse, entertain and inspire curious young minds and indie-animation-loving grown-ups alike.

Animation for Kids 8+ 

68 mins approx.

Spring Jam

NZ 2016

Director: Ned Wenlock

6 mins

Lone Stag lacks a certain something on the antlers front: antlers. Without them he has little chance of getting any birds to help him make music for the spring jam.

Anatole’s Little Saucepan

France 2014

Director: Éric Montchaud

6 mins

Meet Anatole, who is never without the little saucepan behind him. It’s quite literally a drag and really holds him back, but there's someone in the world who can help make sense of it.

An Object at Rest

USA 2015

Director: Seth Boyden

6 mins

This Oscar-nominated film follows the life of a stone as it travels over the course of millennia.

Two Friends

Russia 2014

Director: Natalia Chernysheva

4 mins

It’s super hard for frogs and caterpillars to remain lifelong friends. This bittersweet story of inter-species friendship shows the tricky side of metamorphosis.

Some Thing

Germany 2015

Director: Elena Walf

7 mins

Perhaps it’s really not that bad to have something deeply strange inside you that others laugh at. 

About a Mother

Russia 2015

Director: Dina Velikovskaya

8 mins

A compelling story about a mother raising her three boys, and the power of sacrifice, familial love and particularly strong hair.

My Grandfather Was a Cherry Tree

Russia 2015

Directors: Olga Poliektova, Tatiana Poliektova

12 mins

A young boy tells us his views on love, life and death as he remembers his grandfather, who could listen to the trees breathing and believed that no one can die if someone still loves them.