A bubbling undercurrent of animated short films emerges every year, mostly seen at specialist festivals or, occasionally, glimpsed on late-night television. With such a variety of creative means at hand - paper drawings, collage, digital inking on computer tablets, stop-motion puppetry moved frame-by-frame, and CGI worlds built by the pixel - it's not surprising that the subjects and themes of such works are similarly complex and multi-dimensional. This collection includes works exploring some weighty themes, from mental health to sex to structural racism. Animation helps a range of storytellers to bring the unseen to the surface and to play with narrative time and space in unique ways. For artists, the incorporation of movement and sound into their work often unlocks new and exciting creative paths. Whether interrogating and elucidating fact, or adding new dimensions to fiction, animation is the engine that powers these films and countless others for those wishing to explore more.