Burrow (USA, 6 minutes)
Director: Madeline Sharafian. In perhaps the quaintest of the five animated shorts, a female rabbit digs for new digs only to repeatedly find herself invading the space of other burrowing creatures. This process continues until she learns going it alone isn’t nearly as fun and rewarding as joining together to form a community. What Sharafian, an artist on the Oscar-winning “Coco,” lacks in imagination is handsomely compensated by superior animation techniques and a fastidious attention to detail. Still, it fails to unearth much emotion. Grade: B-
Genius Loci (French, 16 minutes)
Director: Adrien Mérigeau. No arguing the inventiveness of Mérigeau’s distinctive pen-and-ink style, but his deep dive into the inner-emotional world of a young, lonely Parisian woman is just too esoteric to comprehend. It’s visually pleasing watching the constant shapeshifting of people, patterns and pets, but for what purpose? And at 16 minutes, it becomes a bit of a chore trudging toward a confusing, most unsatisfying conclusion. That’s a significant letdown considering Mérigeau got his start as an animator on Tomm Moore’s classic, distinctively Irish tale, “Song of the Sea.” Grade: C