Academy Leader Variations

A Cossack once stood on the shore and looked at the water, trying to catch a mermaid. But she took his reflection and went away with the man’s the soul. The mermaid fell in love with the reflection and did not want to let him go back to the land. What should the Cossack do? And how will mermaid fight the evil and harmful monster that inhabits the sea bottom and tries to lure her?

An era comes to an end. It seems to be time to render accounts. Preparations for the afterlife need to be made. In the form of a confession. Erich Honecker appears before the Holy Father. With a request for absolution. But the Pope has something to confess, too.

The cock wakes the sun every morning. His hens are loyal to him in return. When he oversleeps the sun's wake-up call, it rises anyway. The hens realize the deception and a fierce battle for power begins.

While trying to comfort people in need, a young man causes quite a bit of trouble for a farming family...

A journey through time, through the magical worlds of the paintings, engravings and frescoes of the painter Francisco de Goya. Variations on sketches and paintings that, animated, narrate passages of the painter's life and work.

It's midnight. A smattering of moonlight falls upon the forest floor. Two mechanical snails move slowly through the darkness. They confront one another and briefly take the measure each other’s powers before uniting in love play. With mounting ecstasy, their transparent bodies begin to glow, but just before climax a dark shadow looms over them...

Taking place during the events of Incredibles 2, Edna Mode babysits Jack-Jack.

The second essay about still dominant dark aspects of our modern society. It is conceived as a surreal anti-patriarchal thought experiment and raises important questions about gender, power, and social change, prompting us to reflect on how historical patterns of discrimination and oppression might be either repeated or overcome in a reversed gendered world. It challenges the viewer to confront their own assumptions and biases, and to consider the possibilities of a more equitable society.

Two boys go outside at night to capture a bird. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2003.

Mickey Mouse lies in bed like a lord, getting served breakfast by man's (and mouse's?) best friend Pluto as gentleman's gentleman. Next duty is to fetch the paper, but also pay for it with a coin for the vending machine, and those round things have a nasty habit of escaping a dog's teeth and bouncing over the pavement till they end up in the gutter. After enough attempts to fish and spend the penny, Pluto has a newspaper to carry the same way. The wind has a nasty way to get a better grip on page after page then the dog, so by the time he delivers the daily dose of printed news it's an embarrassingly muddy mess.

Pluto is on the run after stealing a bone from Butch the bulldog and finds refuge in a carnival Hall of Mirrors.

Mickey's going golfing, and Pluto is his caddy. Besides the usual caddy duties, Pluto runs to the ball and points to it. But when the ball lands in a gopher hole, Pluto's got another task: chase the gopher. They eventually chase each other through a number of holes in a knoll where Mickey is trying to putt out, causing the knoll to collapse.

Pluto spots Dinah the dachshund and is smitten, but she ignores him. He uses a giant bone to steal a kiss, and hides behind a mirror, but still no luck. Then Dinah is nabbed by the dogcatcher, and Pluto goes in to free her. Their thrilling escape finally gets Pluto another kiss.

Pluto is patrolling a beach for the Coast Guard when a baby turtle hatches. The turtle keeps trying to sneak into the restricted zone to swim, and Pluto keeps trying to stop him. But when Pluto stumbles into some quicksand, he suddenly needs help from his foe.

As a ship's crew is on shore leave, seadog Pluto is left to stand watch. He sees a threatening shape, but it turns out to be a cache of bones. He grabs one and settles in contentedly. A rat sneaks on, and Pluto springs into action. The rat toys with him, until it finds the officer's mess. He bribes Pluto, until he hears an officer approaching. The rat hides, and Pluto gets thrown in the brig, while the rat sneaks off with his sandwich. But Pluto gets even.

Minnie's learning first aid; she asks Pluto and Figaro for help. Pluto keeps throwing Figaro into buckets and otherwise getting him into trouble. Then, when Minnie has Pluto all trussed up in splints, Figaro taunts him.

In Holland, Pluto acts as a milkman (dog?) leaving canisters of milk on the town's doorsteps. While going about his job, he falls head over heels in love with Dinah the dachshund. In his enthusiasm, he accidentally rings the dike bell causing the town to think the dike is leaking. When the fraud is exposed, Pluto and Dinah are kicked out of the town. Upon leaving, they both notice the dike actually has sprung a leak. While Dinah plugs the leak, Pluto must return to the town and find a way to get the residents to follow him to the dike leak.

Pluto is tied up in the backyard and has been ordered by the maid to stay outside while she prepares a roast. Of course, once Pluto smells the scent of the roast, he makes a beeline for the kitchen. Unfortuantely, staying undiscovered proves difficult for Pluto once he gets inside particularly after he inhales a bucket of soapy water and starts sneezing. Bubbles fill the kitchen and cups are broken at which point the maid comes downstairs. Luckily, Pluto returns to his doghouse leaving the impression that he never left. The maid just shrugs and says, "I could swear it was that dog."

Mickey and Pluto make a short stopover on a South American flight. Mickey throws Pluto's ball into the jungle, and he chases it but it looks exactly the same as an armadillo that's rolled up into a ball. This, of course, greatly confuses Pluto for a while. But he eventually makes friends with the armadillo. He chases the critter into a cave right behind his ball, and rips the ball apart thinking it's the armadillo, which makes him very sad until the armadillo shows up again.

Pluto walks past the zoo and sees the huge bone the sleeping lion has but getting it out is easier said than done. He gets it out of the lion's cage, but then has to face the kangaroo and its playful joey. Next is the gorilla, then the crocodiles.