AWN’s latest survey spotlights a selection of under-the-radar animated shorts currently making waves on the festival circuit — or freshly available online.
This month’s Binocular Briefs lineup features male protagonists grappling with both literal and metaphorical demons: a hearing-impaired genie; a man with an unhealthy obsession with Crash Test Dummies; another foolishly trying to outwit time; and one more haunted by the slow retreat of his hairline.
Basketball Explorer Presents: The Shot Doctor by Keith Pakiz, United States (2025)
This demonic little slice of absurdity feels like the unholy offspring of Mike Judge and the cult classic Winnebago Man. Set during the taping of an educational basketball video by regional player Pete Denny, it quickly becomes clear that Denny’s once-promising life is unraveling before our eyes. He’s missing shots, losing his temper, and appears to have pulled his own hair out. With each failed take, we descend further into his fractured psyche — until we witness its total collapse.
What elevates The Shot Doctor beyond a generic oddball sketch is Pakiz’s razor-sharp sense of timing: the sudden cuts, the bizarre throwaway moments of Pete swearing or gasping for air. It’s awkward, unsettling, and painfully funny.
You're unlikely to walk away with better basketball skills — but you might gain a deeper appreciation for the cruel cesspool that swallows up many a tortured soul.
Ok! Bye!
The 12 Inch Pianist by Lucas Ansel, United States (2024)
This RISD graduation film from the creator of the hilarious 99¢ Pizza provides a welcome mix of absurdity, comedy, and drama. Three men in a bar — a bartender, a 12-inch pianist, and a customer — bond over the fact that they’ve each been granted wishes by a genie in the men’s room, all of which have gone awry due to the genie’s hearing problem. Beneath the wonderfully strange setting and surreal humor, the film explores deeper themes of queer identity, discrimination, masculinity, and childhood trauma.
Ansel’s weary-looking puppets — like castoffs from a forgotten episode of The Charlie McCarthy Show (look it up, kids) — amplify the film’s uneasy charm, creating a world where you’re never quite sure whether to laugh, cry, or scream.
S The Wolf by Sameh Alaa, France (2025)
Well, this marks the second straight year we’ve had a short animated film tackle the theme of male baldness. Last year it was Beautiful Men; this time, it’s Sameh Alaa’s S The Wolf. Is there something going on fellas? Touch wood, I’ve been pretty fortunate in the hair department. I remember when I saw my grandfather’s fresh corpse in the hospital. In the midst of my shock over seeing a dead person, I paused to admire my 85-year-old grandfather’s thick head of hair. “I’ll be okay,” I thought to myself.
With a raw, rough, and deliberately sparse design, S The Wolf tells the tale of a man — or more precisely, the journey of his hair and the trauma of baldness. Like The 12 Inch Pianist, Wolf walks a fine line between comedy and drama, as Alaa explores themes of adolescence, physical stigma, first love, family, and self-acceptance. It’s a refreshing counterpoint to the glut of overproduced indie shorts currently making the rounds. This is a sharp reminder that a potent story doesn’t need to be overlong or overly reliant on music and slick aesthetics to make an impact.
Poor Marciano by Alex Rey, Spain (2025)
On one hand, perhaps only Canadians will fully appreciate Alex Rey’s endless, absurd joke about the one-hit-wonder that is Crash Test Dummies. (If you’ve never experienced them, do yourself a favor — or not — and watch: Crash Test Dummies - Mmm Mmmm Mmm Mmm.)
First, let me apologize on behalf of Canada. Yes, we’ve given the world gold — hockey mastery and most of Hollywood’s comedic talent — but we’ve also dealt out some pretty pungent cheese: Celine Dion, Shania Twain, Justin Bieber, Nickelback... and yes, the Dummies, who belong to a level of auditory hell that only someone like former regional basketball player Pete Denny might fully understand.
Poor Marciano tells the story of a boy born to an oddball, obsessive father, Paco, who is hopelessly devoted to the music of Crash Test Dummies. When young Marciano dares to listen to Tears for Fears, Paco punishes him by sending him to bed without dinner.
As he grows up, Marciano — socially awkward and nicknamed “Martian” by cruel peers — retreats into the world of science. He buries himself in astronomy books, becomes a recluse, and eventually rises to become one of the most respected astrophysicists in the world.
He also jerks off.
A lot.
One day, he’s chosen to transmit Earth’s first official message to intelligent life on Mars.
It does not go well.
Off-Time by Nata Metlukh, United States, Japan, Ukraine (2025)
Many of us live in a constant rush — always shifting, shortcutting, trying to save time. But why? We don’t actually save time. Time keeps going. We can’t stop time. Time stops us. No matter how hard we try, we can’t master it. And half the time (ha), we don’t even know what we’re trying to save time for. More work? More errands? More Netflix? Do we ever stop and ask ourselves: What the hell are we doing? What is it we’ve been led to believe we should constantly be chasing?
Meanwhile, in Off-Time, Nata Metlukh follows an impatient data engineer obsessively trying to “save time” and make life easier. But each shortcut he takes just creates more chaos and new problems. He’s so focused on controlling time that he misses the present — the people, the moments, the life right in front of him.
Metlukh’s playful, animated style, paired with a cyclical and slightly ominous '70s sci-fi synth score, mirrors this looping madness. Splashes of color — most notably blue and gold, a likely nod to Metlukh’s Ukrainian roots — punctuate the visual world’s freewheeling madness.
Off-Time is a vivid, clever meditation on our collective obsession with efficiency. When we stop obeying time, stop letting it control us, maybe that’s when we actually start to live. I once interviewed a man in a local detention center. He told me he'd never felt more free. I asked how that could be — being incarcerated against his will. He said: “Because time breaks apart. You’ve got nowhere to go, no one to meet. And when you accept that, you let go of time. And in that letting go — you’re free.”
A well-known figure in the world of independent animation, writer, author & curator Chris Robinson is the Artistic Director of the Ottawa International Animation Festival.
