An occasional series in which Mostly Film looks at the best short films being distributed on the web

MostlyFilm likes big. MostlyFilm likes small. And given that we’re rather small ourselves, we like to see the things we champion get big: whether that be an individual film or a niche film festival. This feature is basically a one-stop window for the best – or at least the prettiest – of what’s going on in the world of short films and web series: a new artistic world that’s grown extraordinarily fast in the last ten years.

If you’ve made a short film yourself, or have just seen one you particularly like, please email editor@mostlyfilm.com, point us to it, and we’ll see what we can put together. If we get enough responses, we may put on an event in a central London cinema for outstanding respondents. So if you’re struggling to finish that short film, now might be the time to push it over the line.

What follows after the jump isn’t at all indicative of what we’re looking for; it’s just what’s turned up in our trawls over the past few weeks. The emphasis is on animated work, which doesn’t necessarily suggest a bias on our part: it’s just a reflection of how expensive live-action stuff is in comparison. You needn’t feel inhibited about nominating something different. In fact, we’d encourage you to do so.

What if a superhero actually appeared on the streets, with no explanation or backstory? To the unwary, might the results look and feel a bit like this?

A teaser for a longer web series, Shinjuku shows the influence of much-missed MTV animation Aeon Flux, as well as Gaspar Noé’s Enter The Void. No coherent narrative has emerged yet, but how good does this look?

In a similar disorientating mode, there’s Mirror City – timelapse images of great metropolitan landscapes that have been mirrored across or down the screen for no other reason than it looks cool. And it does:

Getting still closer to the ground is Niche in the Market, in which Brixton stallholders discuss their lives, work and environment:

Finally, moving from the local to the personal (or positively indiosyncratic) is Wish List – masterminded by one of Britain’s great short filmmakers Chris Shepherd. It’s a sort of Creature Comforts for the paranoid and insecure:

If you have any recommendations, please send them in. If you have any submissions, we may be able to go even further.

editor@mostlyfilm.com