The Bermuda International Film Festival for Kids opens today for three days of fun and entertainment. Among the more serious offerings, there will also be light mental refreshment in the form of a series of short films called Twisted Toons. took a look at a few of them.

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SURLY SQUIRREL (2005, 11 minutes).

Surly Squirrel Has The Professional Touch

Animated short film ?Surly Squirrel? from DKP Studios is 11 minutes of high speed fun and entertainment.

Director and screenwriter Peter Lepeniotis has packed this film with humour and action.

The plot of Surly Squirrel is simple and vaguely familiar: a rat and a squirrel scheme to sneak a slice of pizza past a ?rakkoon? and an army of ?pidjuns? who all want to share. Needless to say, Surly Squirrel and his rodent pal are not into sharing.

The pizza slice heist is carried out against the backdrop of a bank robbery. The animal characters become hopelessly embroiled in the human drama and eventually influence the outcome.

The visuals are often quite creative in Surly Squirrel. At one point Surly is desperately hanging on to the back of the getaway car and looks up to see 300 ?pidjuns? bearing down on him. The pidjuns are portrayed from the underside rather than from above to great effect.

The characters are cute, but parents be warned, this is not the movie ?Over The Hedge?. ?Surly Squirrel? is for older kids, and children with parents who don?t mind mild violence and cursing. (Some of the characters have potty mouths.) Surly Squirrel has won numerous awards including Best Animation 2005 at the Rhode Island International Film Festival and the People?s Choice Award 2005 at Siggraph International Film Festival, among many others.

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LIFE IN TRANSITION (2005, 4 minutes)

Life In Transition is a highly sophisticated, surrealistic short film, that would perhaps make a better fit in the adult film festival.

Life in Transition by John R. Dilworth is the stuff that kiddie nightmares are made of ? toothy monsters, a sea urchin on legs and a dancing, flabby naked guy wearing a thong and a flower over his privates.

There wasn?t really much of a plot beyond that. It was essentially animated art that lasted four minutes.

For this film, we commissioned a four-year-old film buff since it was after all, a ?kids? film festival. She actually had no problem with the flabby naked guy with a flower over his privates. In fact, she found him hysterical.

Even after we began to review other films thought to be more appropriate she would periodically demand, ?put the funny one on again?.

So what can this reviewer say except that the boring adult viewpoint was that it was unsuitable for small children ? and the small child viewpoint was ?this film rocks?.

Apparently, other adults agreed with the four-year-old because Life In Transition won a ?Best In Show? award at ASIFA-East Animation Festival in New York City and a bronze award at the Kalamazoo Animation Festival International, in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

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TRAGIC STORY WITH HAPPY ENDING (2005, 8 minutes).

Tragic Story With Happy Ending is a wonderful blend of poetry and film. It is a fable about a little girl with an exceptionally loud heart beat.

Her heartbeat is so loud that it keeps her neighbours up at night. The rhythm of her heart infiltrates everything that happens in the film, until it is not so much a heart beating, as music.

Eventually, her heartbeat becomes the backdrop to the neighbours? lives and they forget the sound is there.

They accept her, and her heartbeat is no longer a disability.

This is a great film to use to talk with children about disabilities and differences. It is meant for children ages ten to 12, and the actual film DVD comes with a lesson plan in French and in English.

Tragic Story with Happy Ending has great artistry and is drawn in a black and white style similar to pen and ink drawings.

It gives the characters a slightly macabre feel. The pen and ink style in a cartoon sounds rigid, but works very well to create detail.

Little things like the swish of the hair actually come alive under this regime.

Tragic Story with Happy Ending was produced in French, although it has an English voice over.

It is a Folimage and Ciclope Filmes production, in co-production with the National Film Board of Canada and Arte France.

?Twisted Toons? will screen at the Liberty Theatre on Saturday at 4.30 p.m. For more information go to http://filmguide.bermudafilmfest.com.