A festival of animated short films makes its debut at the Carl Cherry Center for the Arts.

Since the original screening slated for Nov. 19 sold out within a week through word of mouth alone, organizers decided to add two more showings of “Award-Winning Animated Shorts” at Carmel’s Carl Cherry Center for the Arts. That is your chance to spend 96 minutes exploring a variety of animation styles across nine incredible Canadian films, five to 15 minutes each. The selection was made by Ellen Osborne and Jim Dultz, a couple of film professionals who serve on the board of the Cherry Center.

So why Canada? “First, there is a lot of great material in Canada,” explains Dultz, a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 2005. But there is a more practical reason: “They [the National Film Board of Canada] allow us to screen it for free, as long as we don’t charge an admission fee. It’s helpful. Because that’s the biggest problem – getting rights to films.

“We have been to many animation festivals,” Dultz adds. “When you approach the filmmaker to ask to screen their movie, the answer is almost always yes.” But that’s not always OK with their U.S. distributors.

Canadians have been leaders in exploring animation as an art form, celebrating the form of a powerful visual miniature that skillfully tells the whole story. “They were happy to send it all,” Dultz says.

“We viewed about 50 films and we chose nine to create a great program,” says Osborne, a director, cinematographer and award-winning animator. “They are all artists and they are all different.”

The shortest among the shorts is “Carface” by Claude Cloutier, a four-minute result of pictorial research dating back some 15 years, where a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air offers an ironic take on “Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be),” singing and dancing toward environmental ruin.

The program culminates with “The Danish Poet” by Norwegian-born Canadian film director Torill Kove, which received an Oscar in 2007. In this 15-minute piece, a woman wonders what made her forefathers and foremothers meet and fall in love.

“It’s a lovely story, a story of a journey,” Osborne says. “Beautiful and heartwarming.”

AWARD-WINNING ANIMATED SHORTS 4pm Thursday, Nov. 17; 3pm Saturday, Nov. 19; and 3pm Saturday, Dec. 17. Carl Cherry Center for the Arts, 4th Avenue and Guadalupe Street, Carmel. Free (donations appreciated). Reserve seats at bit.ly/CherryAnimatedShorts2022.