Yours Truly uses 16mm "in camera" reconstructions to manipulate photo cutouts from magazines, movie clips and real objects in miniature 3D environments animated thru stop motion. The result is a multi-layered collage.

Directed by Luis Cook and adapted from a short story by Mick Jackson, The Pearce Sisters (U.K., 2007, 9 min., color, Sony HD Cam) is a horribly funny tale of "love, loneliness, guts, gore, nudity, violence, smoking and cups of tea." In the bleak story, a couple of ugly, twisted sisters living on a grimly isolated scrap of coastline scrape out a measly livelihood from the sea, but when the handsome man they have saved from drowning rejects the spinsters in disgust, things go terribly awry for the ungrateful man.

Cook wanted to go against the happy, claymation style of animation typically produced by Aardman Animations and create a dark story using computers and hand-drawn animation. To support the austerity of the story, he wanted very little music and no dialog. Before the animation process, sound was laid in and acted as a framework for the editing. Expressionless characters were animated in the computer. The animation was then printed out. 2D details and expressions were hand-drawn in a rough, scratchy style over each frame then scanned back into the computer and used as an overlay to the 3D animation. Colors were generally washed out as if bleached by the sea.

Cook has directed commercials for years and is a staff director at Aardman Animation in Bristol, England. The Pearce Sisters has won numerous awards including Best Animation at the 2007 ANIMA -- Córdoba International Animation Festival and the 2007 Cinanima Grand Prize. It received a 2008 BAFTA nomination for Best Short Animation.

Director Joe Tucker's entertaining stop-motion animation For the Love of God (U.K., 2007, 11 min., color, Sony HD Cam) is the irreverent story of Graham (Steve Coogan), an overgrown man-child, who lives with his domineering mother (Julia Davis) and their ever-watchful pet jackdaw (Sir Ian McKellen) in a dusty Christian bookshop, on the seedy outskirts of a crumbling town. He and his mother both love God, but in very different, humorous and unexpected ways.

For the Love of God director Joe Tucker sent his script on a "whim" to Sir Ian McKellen's agent. The renowned actor called a couple of weeks later and agreed to appear in the short.

In casting his graduation film, Tucker sent the script -- written with fellow National Film and Television School graduate Raphael Warner -- on a "whim" to Sir Ian's agent. Excited by its dark humor and originality, the renowned actor called a couple of weeks later and agreed to appear in the short. Armed with NFTS's best recording equipment, Tucker trekked to Sir Ian's apartment to record his lines where, undaunted, he directed one of the greatest actors of his generation. He was also able to work with Steve Coogan, the comedy actor he most admired.

Born in Warrington, Cheshire, Tucker has wanted to make films for as long as he can remember. He graduated from the National Film and Television School in London just two months before his film screened in the Palme d'Or competition at the Cannes Film Festival. It is one of 16 films selected for the Cinéfondation section of the festival, which promotes the new generation of filmmakers.

For the Love of God won the Grand Prize for both Best Animated Film and Best Film at the 2007 Rhode Island International Film Festival and the Silver Hugo for Best Animated Short Film at the 2007 Chicago International Film Festival.

The beauty of director Juan Pablo Zaramella's humorously engaging animation Lapsus (Argentina, 2007, 9 min., color, Sony HD Cam) is in its simple geometry. The black and white two-dimensional animation morphs into different images out of similar shapes, underscored with original music by Germán Castro. The film plays with the concept of black and white as metaphor for good and evil, while having some harmless fun with religion, in this story about a curious nun who ventures into the darker side of her animated world.

Lapsus won Best Animation at the 2007 ANIMA -- Córdoba International Animation Festival and Best Short Film -- Special Mention at the 2007 Guadalajara Mexican Film Festival. It played in Argentina at the Mar del Plata Film Festival, Buenos Aires Festival Internacional Cine Independiente and Buenos Aires Festival of Film for Children and Youth.