D.O. Roth, the German video director who brought Joy Division back to life in a Playmobil animation, earning more than 600,000 YouTube viewers, has struck again. Last year, the internet came alive with talk of the legendary band’s 1979 TV performance of Transmission being performed by the toy figures.

Following success with his plastic versions of Ian Curtis and the acclaimed Factory Records band, Leipzig based film maker D.O. Roth has returned to music videos by working with Manchester band, The Slow Readers Club. Using the same arduous production process as before, Roth has made Playmobil versions of the band to perform in a perfectly observed, stop frame animation – complete with audience participation.

Building a miniature stage set in his apartment, Roth has painstakingly recreated the band’s performance of new single Feet On Fire by watching footage of the Manchester four-piece and recreating their every move. The end result of 100 hours hard work is a cute interpretation of the group’s otherwise brooding appearances, amazingly captured without ever meeting the band.

Roth says: “Over half a million people saw my Joy Division video and I got a great reaction, so it was great to work with a current band in the same way. The Slow Readers Club guitarist Kurt (Starkie) got in touch and we went from there. He sent me a description of the bands’ style, how they looked and how they dressed. With the information that he sent me I searched for the fitting miniatures and instruments and started to put them together.”

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The story of Bradley Manning, not as a Wikileaks ’hacktivist’, but as a young American soldier simultaneously going through a crisis-of-conscious and a crisis-of-gender-identity. Using Adrian Lamo’s chat logs of instant messenger conversations he had with Bradley, the film explores issues of personal and political secrets, digital identity and alienation. The film was made for Animate Projects Digitalis Commissions, supported by Jerwood Charitable Foundation.

Here’s a clever, feel-good little animation made largely with Google Street View. It tells the story of a lonely desk toy who finds escape via a luminous desktop computer.

Word Salad is a mixture of hand-drawn animation and mysterious, ominous music by Micah Buzan. I don’t know what else to say, except that it’s an astonishingly beautiful piece of artwork.

Monster Road gives a look into the life and work of, underground animator, Bruce Bickford. I have a weak spot for stop-motion animation so I may be a bit biased, but Bickford’s obsession with the medium is inspiring.

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Enjoy this animated homage to the pop culture phenomenon. The films are all hand-drawn cell animation with highlighters used for color.

Mind Map Man is a series of very short animated movies created by Majel van der Meulen, an illustrator and designer, living and working in Amsterdam.

The Penguin Prophecy is the sequel to Patient 28. This short shifts focus to Aden Moss, the doctor treating Patient 28, and reveals a possible link between the two that traces back to Aden’s childhood [watch Patient 28 here]

In this latest short film from Jonathan Monaghan, a lion loses both his crown and his head. Confused? That’s ok. Just don’t be afraid.

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Have you ever wished you could go back the last few minutes of your life? To say something different, to do something you should have done? Travis found a way.

Toondra animation studio is one of the better known animation studios in Russia creating animated music videos and commercial animation. This is the video for the song My Name Is Shnur by the legendary rock band, Leningrad.

Breeder, a motion graphics and animation studio in Brisbane, have created a short animation called Rising, which they hope will act as a powerful reminder for people to donate to the Red Cross Japan disaster appeal.

Joanna Gniady, an illustrator from Poland, in a co-operation with the Karuzela Film Group has animated the collage artwork she created to Mademoiselle Karen’s album, Attention.

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Life is transparent, warm and swirls randomly like a soft light. And it constantly changes in this beautiful animation by Daihei Shibata.

This animated graduation movie made by three students at Georges Méliés School delicately and ingeniously tells the tale of a child who lives a nightmarish first day at kindergarten.

This award-winning animation from young UK director Tim Travers Hawkins is pivoted on recorded phone conversations he had with detained asylum seekers in British ‘removal centres’. It is visually dark and absorbing. The recordings provide a chilling narrative and a window into the hidden world of these ‘invisible’ peoples whom the British government, it seems, chooses to forget.

We love this dope stop-motion animated video for the new Neon Indian song, 6669 (I Don’t Know If You Know).

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In his brilliant animation, titled 35mm, Pascal Monaco has jammed 35 references to cinematic classics into the space of just two minutes and seventeen seconds. Quite incredible! [via This Blog Rules]

The creators of Robot Chicken seem to have hit on an indestructible comedy formula that involves making claymation characters of either a television show, celebrity or popular myth and hoping something funny happens. If that doesn’t work the character is exploded, murdered, battered or sexually abused — which is fine because they’re not real.

Crying in front of a television at home alone on a Friday night is a lot better fun when it’s with laughter, I now know. Lampooned in this series are: He Man, Santa Claus, Hannah Montanna, Lindsay Lohan, Strawberry Shortcake, Mask, GI Joe and Batman, along with a heap of others. Stuff going bang. Funny ha!

I love the energy in this ballistic animated battle royale. Two stick figure Ninjas, slugging it out until the brilliant end. But who will prevail?