Bippy the Little Robot, the newest animated short film from Glenna Burmer, received the 2025 award for Best Original Animation Style at the prestigious FilmHaus film festival in Berlin.
Bippy was selected the winner from a field of 10 nominees representing five countries – US, Canada, Australia, Netherlands and Mexico. In all, 76 jury-selected films were chosen from nearly 1,900 entries submitted to FilmHaus, comprising the top 4% of films submitted. The winning films will be screened in a virtual showcase on the FilmHaus site through November 5, 2025, available here.
FilmHaus burst on the festival scene in 2020 and quickly became known for its recognition of independent, original and innovative film. This year’s FilmHaus competition featured a vast range of talents and topics, and included entries from emerging filmmakers, productions featuring Academy Award winners, and international festival veterans. In making their selection, jury members focused on work that demonstrated originality, technical excellence and authentic artistic vision.
The story of Bippy the Little Robot takes place in the future after humans are annihilated. Despite the bleak and barren landscape, Bippy, a perky little trashcan, sets out on a journey to find if other machines like him still exist.
In an abandoned music studio, Bippy discovers a broken-down piano where he improvises a jazz piece that awakens a pink toaster named Anna. The music inspires a swirling dance sequence using innovative motion capture and the future, which once seemed dismal, grows a little brighter.
This inspirational message of hope is resonating with audiences worldwide. Bippy has been honored with more than 30 awards from international films festivals including Paris, Milan, Florence, Zurich, Turkey, Hamburg and Stockholm as well as the U.S.
Bippy is the second animated film produced by Glenna Burmer in collaboration with Deep Sky & Imaginary Planet. The team’s first joint project was Nana korobi, Ya oki, completed in spring 2021