Universally recognized as one of the world's leading post-secondary art institutes, Vancouver Film School has been nurturing artistic talent since 1987. Student films from there play in the best film festivals in the world. Actors, designers and animators go on to be sought-after professionals in the film and television world. Kevin Smith and his producer, Scott Mosier, are both alums. And all of this is accomplished in programs that last a year or less.

The VFS videos on Openfilm showcase the work of students specializing in acting, filmmaking, makeup design, visual design, animation and visual effects. The films could broadly be categorized as animation or live-action, but keep in mind that there are a lot of revolving doors here between the 13 production-oriented programs the school has to offer.

On the animation front: The Land of Cubes is set in a fascist world where everything is square - the people, the buildings, everything. Extreme conformity is broken only by a single paper airplane flying through the air. The designs in this movie are nothing short of awesome. Climber, a hallucinatory film set on the side of an impossibly steep mountain, features dynamic sound work courtesy of student Jessica Lemes de Silva. Heavy Lifting is a hilarious video about a sleepy robot construction worker, while S*x & and the Socket is about a horny light socket. I've never seen graphic s*x between a bulb and a socket before - apparently energy-saving CFL lights make the best lovers. For those of you in the market for a special friend, therecs The Longest Date and Blind Date! They're basically what not to do on a date, but they're both funny and energetic. They take a page from the Brad Bird book of animation.

On the live-action front: What You Can Do For Your Woman is an expertly scripted short that's more convincing as a drama than as a period piece. It features a scenario familiar to fans of Taxi Driver and True Romance, in which an abusive pimp (frighteningly played by Primo Allon) is taken down by a lovesick client. The dialogue is razor-sharp. ("Out of all the guys in the world, how did I get so lucky?s" "You had a ten in your wallet.") Two films concerned with ordinary people in modern-day Iran: The Shade and Iran: A Nation of Bloggers. The statistics in the latter film (the excellent script and research were done by Kate Tremills) are very striking and not at all what you'd hear about in the mainstream media, save for a few scattered reports by Ted Koppel.

Makeup Design Disaster Exercise chronicles a large-scale project that makeup design students participated in to help firefighters and rescue works prepare for disaster. The scenario is that there's been a terrorist attack with many people wounded, and the students are there to provide the wounds. I never would have guessed that such exercises existed; when I watch this video and I think of FEMA and Hurricane Katrina I just want to cry. Two more excellent documentaries: Ssstutter, about a teenager struggling with a severe speech disorder and mostly thriving, and Copoeira, an inspiring look at Afro-Brazilian martial arts that's deservedly one of the most popular non-fiction films on Openfilm.

For genre fare, there's the funny/scary sorority-sisters-in-peril flick Delta Delta Dead! For pure visual kicks, look no further than The Moon. For a great music video, check out Balloon Flip.