{"id":54385,"date":"2026-08-03T23:57:28","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T03:57:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=54385"},"modified":"2026-08-03T23:57:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T03:57:28","slug":"a-pair-of-animated-shorts-fantasia-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2026\/08\/03\/a-pair-of-animated-shorts-fantasia-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"A Pair of Animated Shorts\u00a0[Fantasia 2026]\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Fantasia always has a plethora of short films. Due to time, it was not possible to review all that many, so here are 2 that are animated and wildly different:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Sunspark\u00a0(short) (2026)\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A robot working hard finding existence a bit lonely stumbles upon\u00a0another robot needing\u00a0assistance\u00a0while looking for truck parts.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Written, directed, starring, and\u00a0basically all\u00a0the things by\u00a0Danny Bourque,\u00a0Sunspark\u00a0is a cute\u00a0animated film that takes the idea that loneliness is universal and applies to robots in a time where there seems to be no humans.\u00a0The story is\u00a0touching,\u00a0and the characters are adorable, making this an easy, fun watch with a message about loneliness and\u00a0finding\u00a0your people in the most\u00a0unlikely\u00a0places. The quality of the work here is solid with lots of talent on display with a story that shows that sometimes less is\u00a0more,\u00a0and a shorter runtime is not always a limitation or\u00a0a bad thing.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Lab Rat (short) (2026)\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A rat tells his story from his cage, first content with water and food on tap, soon realizing why he is there. Then the cycle repeats, repeats, repeats.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

From writer-director-animator Eric Bent, Lab Rat is a dark tale with even darker imagery about a, you guessed it,\u00a0lab rat. This film is dark and shows that sometimes you need to be to pass a message. The way the rat is humanized and given a literal voice makes this film one that some will find hard to watch and one that makes you think about what happens in animal testing. The visuals here are not afraid to go where they need to\u00a0in order to\u00a0make a point with animation that is clear and clean, giving the rat more life and personality than the humans imposing cruelty upon him. The voice acting by Jovien Smith\u00a0is on point\u00a0here,\u00a0and if this work alone\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0pull on the heartstring, a check-up may be needed.\u00a0This short film is excellent with\u00a0maybe a\u00a0small need to trim the run time as it clocks in\u00a0at\u00a025\u00a0minutes\u00a0which is a bit much for a short film.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Fantasia 2026 runs from July 16th to August 2nd, 2026\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fantasia always has a plethora of short films. Due to time, it was not possible to review all that many, so here are 2 that are animated and wildly different:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2497],"tags":[99,219,302,4062,477],"class_list":["post-54385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fantasia-fest","tag-animation","tag-comedy","tag-drama","tag-fantasia-2026","tag-horror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54385"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54386,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54385\/revisions\/54386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}