Vagabond

If there's one thing that can survive the suffocating hardships of the dystopian future, it's the love between a man and his dog. Vagabond follows the story of Dio, a homeless man whose unwavering resilience to save the life of his best friend leads him straight into the dark, uncaring industrial sprawl of a towering metropolis.

One of my (many) favorite shots from the film.

With a fascinating futuristic setting of an apparent working-class society, the border-less character-design, The ominious sharp-forking piping of the backgrounds, and the choice use of minimal spoken dialogue and atmospheric sound design, Vagabond is a student short with a strong core premise executed exceptionally.

That final full-shot of the city is spectacular, definitely conjuring up comparisons to Genndy Tartakovsky's Samurai Jack. Vagabond is the graduation project of a team of five animators and three computer graphic students of The Animation Workshop university based in Denmark. Check out more behind-the-scenes production art and bios on the students at the film's Tumblr!