It’s almost summer, and we’re heading into the thick of the festival season. A pretty big one just wrapped up in Toronto over the weekend, the Worldwide Short Film Festival, which bills itself as the largest short film festival in North America and is an Academy Awards-qualifier to boot.

None of the live-action winners are online, but I did spot this year’s Best Animated Film, a gentle and lovely film out of France, Le Silence Sous l’écorce by Joanna Lurie.

The film is pretty, and has some interesting sequences, but at 11 min it stretches the attention span a bit. If you’re a general fan of shorts you could probably skip, but if you’re an animation buff, like a few of us on staff here at SotW, you’ll definitely want to check it out. I’ve linked to Vimeo, which is a site I prefer, but also note that Babelgum signed an agreement with the festival this year to showcase many of the entries, and there could be some good picks in there if you’re feeling adventurous.