All of these short films, except the first one and those with no words, are in German with English subtitles. Enjoy the variety!

Apparently, rocks are having conversations all around us, but they talk very, very slowly. Das Rad is, at times, quite funny (Hew, the larger of the two rocks, spends several millenia dealing with an algae “rash”), but the most impressive thing about this 9-minute short (aside form the animation, which is phenomenal) is the way it handles the passage of time.

A German mother lies to her son about where the Nazis are sending their Jewish neighbors. Good filmmakers don’t need a feature to make powerful movies. “Toyland” is a film that works so brilliantly that it managed to be powerful, thought-provoking and even gut-wrenching than most Hollywood films that are eight to ten times longer. With sparse dialogue, director Jochen Alexander Freydank keeps us hooked throughout this superb short film.

Kurz & Gut Macht Schule II: Animation is a useful and creative resource for instructors and learners of German. The DVD is a compilation of eleven animated short films ranging from four to fifteen minutes in length, which is a perfect amount of time for use in a classroom setting for learners of German as a foreign language.

A young black man is verbally harassed by an older woman on a streetcar, while the other passengers remain silent. He finally exacts his revenge. Pepe Danquart's Oscar-winning Schwarzfahrer is a look not only at racism, but at its subtlety. The old woman who rants against immigrants is odious enough, but more important is that no one challenges her.