I suspect you’ll be hearing these two names a great deal more in the coming years – Cédric Louis and Claude Barras. They’re a directing tandem from Belgium and Switzerland (respectively), and their recent 6-minute, stop-motion short Land of the Heads is getting rave reviews around the web. By way of the NFB’s studio Helium Films, the duo has crafted a stylish story about vampire reluctantly killing children to please his vain wife. Here’s a 40-second trailer:

World Animation Day, or International Animation Day, (October 28th) is still a ways off, but the NFB is already gearing up. Below is a promotional trailer for Get Animated!, a series of free screenings and workshops that will be held across Canada between October 23rd and 31st.

The National Film Board of Canada is one of the key partners that helps pull together the Short Film Corner for each year’s Cannes Film Festival. Together, they help assemble short films that are then voted on by the public via the internet. Below is Luke Randall’s 4 minute, CG-animated submission, titled Reach, which was produced in association with the NFB. It seems to draw inspiration from the saying “a man’s reach should exceed his grasp.” The winner of the competition will be announced May 21st.

Canadian animator Cordell Barker has wrapped up his latest animated project – Runaway. The project is set to music by Ben Charest, who composed the score for The Triplets of Belleville. This is Barker’s 3rd NFB-sponsored film. The first was The Cat Came Back in 1988, and then in 2001 he released Strange Invaders, which landed many awards including Special Jury Mention at Annecy. While we await the summertime web release of the full film, here’s a trailer for Runaway, which Barker describes as a metephor of a society sleepwalking through their own destruction.

And here’s a 3-minute Making Of presentation that features an interview with Barker.

We’ll keep you updated when this film is available on the web in its entirety.