Benoit Berthe blew us away with his own short film, Nathan, which he completed while he was at the celebrated French animation school Supinfocom before moving to London to work out of Nexus. Mindful that Benoit has a discerning eye for great student work, we asked the young talent to choose six of the best animation graduation films ever.

“It was not easy at all to select them, as there are so many amazing animations done in different places, schools and at different times with such a variety of techniques,” said Benoit.  “Because there was such a freedom of choice, and too many possibilities, I decided to create some rules to help me with the most varied and interesting selection.

“So I chose only one graduation film from the six best schools in the world in my view and based my choice on the originality of the visual and scenario. Also, the selection is from 2000 onwards as the old graduation films are too difficult to find, and not really representative of what is done today.”

The Chosen Ones:

Les Chiens Isolés (2011) Animation: Rémi Bastie, Nicolas Dehghani, Jonathan Djob Nkondo, Paul Lacolley, Kevin Manach, Nicolas Pegon, Jérémy Pires, Gobelins, Paris.

Camera Obscura (2007) directed by Jean-Michel Drechsler, Matthieu Buchalski, Thierry Onillon, Supinfocom, Valenciennes France

Will (2012) directed by Eusong Lee, Calarts

La Queue de la Souris (2007) directed by Benjamin Renner, La Poudriere, Valence, France

The Eagleman Stag (2010) directed by Mikey Please, Royal College of Art, London

Loom, directed by Jan Bitzer, Ilija Brunck, Csaba Letay, Filmakademie Ludwigsburg