The shortest film in the selection, but by no means the least intense, is by a master of Japanese animation, Kōji Yamamura. Somewhere between calligraphy, embryology and words from beyond the grave, a convulsive poem wraps itself around the Japanese syllable 'da' – a breath that could just as well be the first as the last.

The shortest film in the selection, but by no means the least intense, is by a master of Japanese animation, Kōji Yamamura. Somewhere between calligraphy, embryology and words from beyond the grave, a convulsive poem wraps itself around the Japanese syllable 'da' – a breath that could just as well be the first as the last.