Animation Part 1. It’s always a favourite, and always pretty hard to describe.
My favourite by some way was Retirement Plan:

Ray daydreams about how to spend his retirement once he finally has some free time. Wonderfully simple in style yet capturing a world of emotion as we delve through his list; this moving and sweet short invites us to consider how to live before the inevitable.

A love-letter to 70s and 80s giallo slashers. A mood, more than a story.

The story, such as it is, is ridiculous. Liam is a food delivery rider who provides services on the side. He’s good at his job and in high demand from a series of Chicago oddities, all keen to satisfy their kinks and perversions, with a pizza on the side. But what’s this? Clients are being brutally murdered? And Liam’s in the frame? The brutish police are closing in, a leather-gloved lurker holds a knife, it’s all getting dangerous.

I loved it. It made almost no sense but it was funny, rude, and fun to watch.

Pros:

• This had some very cool visuals (I love rotoscoped animation!)
• Lots of cool atmosphere (fog, churches, beasts, witchcraft)
• Some of it was pretty funny.

Cons:

• Too many strands of story, which meant each was underdeveloped.
• Not enough werewolf.
• Felt way too long, even though it was a pretty tight 90mins.

I do think there’s a good film in there, and a lot of talent, but this was too muddled for me. The werewolf plot, evil priest plot, witchcraft plot and impotent baron plot were basically all separate stories. In trying to do them all, none of them went very far.

An impressive, hand-crafted animated retelling of the Little Mermaid, transplanted to a version of Shanghai in which big business and the King of the Sea are quarrelling. Only the union of the Fish Princess and uh… some junior guy at a shipping company can bring peace and unity.

It’s fine. I did like a lot of the animation, and there were some lovely scenes (including a surprisingly good car chase!), but I grew pretty tired of the lead guy’s entitled male whinging. I know, I know, the whole story was a journey of developing his character and learning to be a better person but… if you don’t like the breakfast your fish princess wife makes for you, maybe you should make your own breakfast, you chump. Instead of waiting for her single female friend to step in and teach her how to cook like a good wife. Urgh.

A 100 year old cinema wonder, exploring the mysteries of space through cutting edge film effects. We cover the history of human understanding of space, the individual planets, the seasons, moons, and more. It’s truly stunning stuff, although the highlights are all the bits with people in (jumping in low-gravity on Mars! walking on the walls of the spaceship!).

Matthew Bourne’s live moog soundtrack was absolutely wonderful as well.