Our Animated Lives

In an abundant year for queer animation, GAZE is delighted to showcase an entire block of animated shorts. Genre hopping, boundary pushing, skin tingling and heartwarming, these shorts show how skilfully animators condense the expansive queer experience into their art.

Stoned for Christmas

Built like a blunt rotation, this multimedia love letter to weed cycles follows a weed courier’s deliveries through different animation styles, resulting in a delightfully surrealist trip through the chaos of NYC and the unpredictability of navigating the world while trans.

Morgan Young/ USA/ 14m

Writer: Morgan Young

Producer: Talking Cat Productions

Gossip/Clecs

Told in a Welsh narration of a poem from Jane Campbell’s prize winning debut collection, the subjects of this titular gossip are two older women on a “train-powered honey moon”.

Harri Shanahan/ Wales/ 2m

Writer: Jane Campbell

Producer: Jane Campbell

High Diver

As Tuan and Felix young men train to become Olympic high divers, their budding love suffers under the weight of the competition. Tuan will sacrifice everything for his sport ... or will he?

Oscar Bittner/ Germany/ 5m

Writer: Oscar Bittner

Producer: Andra Berila

Grand Dandy (For Ezra)

Based on Libro Levi Bridgeman’s poem “For Ezra”, a love letter to their grandson, the film follows the playful and tender moments of daily routine as a queer grandparent while the narrator explores how to tell a child they’re non-binary.

The Campbells/ UK, USA/ 4m

Writer: Libro Levi Bridgeman

Producer: Crystal Campbell

Making Space

In a town where fun and inclusivity have long been forgotten, an energetic and free-spirited character named Cardboard decides to change things up, creating a fun queer night for their friends and the queer community in a push against boredom and fascists.

Alan Power/ Ireland/ 6m

Writer: Alan Power

Producer: Alan Power

No One Knows I'm A Dog On The Internet

Exploring digital taboos, kink subculture, and ideas of privacy in an age of Twitter porn and OnlyFans, the artist composites an online puppy play identity and questions if we’re able to share ourselves online while still retaining privacy.

Nate King/ USA/ 4m

Writer: Nate King

Producer: Nate King

Keith

Exploring neurodiversity and autism, different means of communication and animation, and the simultaneous openness and overwhelm of social media, Keith follows the filmmaker’s attempts to learn about a person who was found dead behind the rubbish bins at his flat in Glasgow. 

Steven Fraser/ UK/ 8m

Writer: Steven Fraser

Producer: Reece Cargan

see you soon

A trans woman has gone very far in her transition journey, but she still feels like something is amiss.

Elisa Beli Borrelli/ Ireland/ 6m

Writer: Elisa Beli Borrelli

Producer: Elisa Beli Borrelli

Come the Sun

A new divine creation story imagines red stars, frozen earth, and gods in heat.

Haakon Ziegler/ UK/ 5m

Writer: Haakon Ziegler

Producer: Haakon Ziegler

Cherry, Passion Fruit

A dreamy snapshot of a mysterious narrator who intrigues and excites, evoking the humid forests of the filmmaker’s native Brazil where lust takes shape between love and pain. 

Renato José Duque/ Portugal/ 5m

Writer: Renato José Duque

Producer: Renato José Duque

Tiger Lily Mountain Pass

Inspired by the filmmaker’s time in the forests of Appalachia, this hand-drawn animation explores nature as a space of queer erotic encounter in a region where queerness is often hidden. 

Nate King/ USA/ 5m

Writer: Nate King

Producer: Nate King

Y

As the narrator-protagonist reminisces about a tumultuous relationship with a former girlfriend, an empty paper depicts a struggle between artistic composition and decomposition, frustration and release.

Matea Kovač/ Croatia/ 7m

Writer: Matea Kovač

Producer: Vinko Brešan

Unanimated Strangers

Surrounded by strangers, a woman's memories of her past relationship unravel and intertwine with the people around her. 

Róisín Sinai/ Ireland/ 5m

Writer: Róisín Sinai, Eimear Young and Finn McKeon

Producer: Eimear Young

Gardening

In the aftermath of sexual assault, a woman retreats into the garden of her mind. Unsure how to do ‘the right thing’, she embarks on a breathtaking visual odyssey through rage and catharsis to regain her voice and find new paths to healing, before she and her garden are destroyed completely.

Sarah Beeby/ UK/ 14m

Writer: Louisa Wood

Producer: Jo Lewis