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The Best Animated Short Films To Remember From The 2026 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival

The Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival offered a strong slate of animated short films this year, with stories ranging from quiet science fiction to cultural memory, climate anxiety, and personal identity.

After certain events, sometimes it’s hard to get all my thoughts compressed down fast, especially after watching some short films. The time even spent remotely becomes a blur. And for events that span less than a week, it can feel like a weekend. As a result, it’s hard to believe the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival is over. May the Fourth brought its own challenges for obvious reasons, so offering the last day online was a smart call. Not only can those not able to attend catch a selection from home, but also, what’s offered isn’t always geolocked.

This year, I opted to focus almost entirely on animated works, and the shorts since they rarely get their due. And what’s covered here are my thoughts on those pieces that really impressed me:

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Is Visiting Glitch Victoria Worth It? When Videogames Doesn’t Smell Like Geek Spirit.

Glitch Victoria is set to open on Yates Street, and while the neon looks inviting, the setup tells a familiar story. This mix of two types of operations isn’t necessarily promising a nerd sanctuary. Instead, it’s really a sports bar with arcade controllers.

Glitch Victoria is about to open up shop. Sadly, it will not be what I think it is, an arcade parlour for the video game enthusiast. These days, these operations are few and far between. When you visit places like Akihabara, Japan or Seoul, South Korea, the palaces there span floors, offering the latest games to cater to the video-game enthusiast. That’s because they are major metropolises where such an operation can persist.

In North America, the best city to visit is sweet home Chicago. Industry giants like Midway, Williams, and Bally were headquartered there before they folded. Next on the list is allegedly Portland, Oregon because of the wealth of bars with an arcade there, and that is the model this garden city operation is using. Their marketing already tells you who they’re after. And for those gamer types working in offices, waiting for 5pm to hit, they got the choice of heading here or going home to their PS5 or decked out PC to play online games.

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Lon Chaney’s A Blind Bargain is No Longer Lost. Instead This Movie is Remade!

Crispin Glover delivers the goods in A Blind Bargain, a resurrected piece of lost cinema where Lon Chaney was the star.

Opening May 8th at select theatres.
More screenings TBA. Please see below for locations:

Fans of Lon Chaney will most likely know about A Blind Bargain. It’s a film where the actor played two roles. Not only did he become a mad scientist chasing the fountain of youth, but he also played a hairy man ape! Sadly, no surviving print exists, and film historians must rely on stills and past reviews.

Based on those materials, many critics hail it as brilliant. Not every piece of horror cinema featuring the Man of a Thousand Faces can be deemed truly haunting, and when this work concerns mutating the human genome, anything can happen. Chaney played a “good doctor” whose experiments promised hope but delivered torture. That premise isn’t quite the same in the modern remake written by John Falotico and Bing Bailey and directed by Paul Bunnell, but the DNA is still there.

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Free Comic Book Day and Comics Giveaway 2026: My Top Picks on What To Grab May 2nd

Free Comic Book Day 2026 and the inaugural Comics Giveaway Day are both on my radar this year, and there’s a surprisingly fun mix of titles worth watching. From Greatest American Hero to Journey to the West, these are the free comics that are must grabs.

After the demise of Diamond Distribution as being the main depot to find comics, and advertise Free Comic Book Day 2026 in their catalogue, it’s harder to know ahead of time what will be released. Thankfully we have the Internet. However, not everyone makes the effort to look ahead. And not everyone knows that there’s “two” events instead of one to cover all the publishers. According to The Beat, there was once a plan to have three, but it’s been scaled back.

Not only is there the normal FCBD, there’s also Comics Giveaway Day. As far as I’m concerned, it’s one and the same, just under different distribution channels. There was supposed to be a third, but when Oni Press threw its support behind the original event, the momentum behind that idea collapsed with it.

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Lost and not Found? Can Hunting Matthew Nichols Be A Hail Mary to the Found Footage Format?

Set on Vancouver Island, Hunting Matthew Nichols blends true crime, found footage, and supernatural dread into a regional horror story with real local flavour. For Island viewers especially, that familiar forested backdrop adds an extra chill.

Hunting Matthew Nichols Found footage and true crime are two genres that don’t exactly send me scrambling to the theatre. The format has been done to death, and though not necessarily together, some unique idea has to be pitched before I’ll pay attention, be it paranormal or something else. Hunting Matthew Nichols is one of those films, and it deserves a fair look since it may involve something lurking in them thar woods, to pardon the phrase. In this case, it’s about finding the recording itself and examining it, rather than displacing the narrative from who is watching whom.

And if the buzz around this film is any indication, this regionally made independent production getting a ton of Hollywood attention might be the one to make people say, let’s check this out. Now playing at theatres nationwide, this work from director Markian Tarasiuk, who also acts in the film because apparently sleeping is overrated, and screenwriter Sean Harris Oliver blends true crime drama with the supernatural.

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Level Up Your Game: A Nerd’s Guide to Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival 2026

The Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival returns for 2026 with a lineup full of intriguing discoveries. From animated shorts to offbeat late-night programming, here are some standout picks worth seeking out at this year’s event.

The Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival returns for 2026 with a packed slate that rewards a bit of digging. Beyond the headline titles, it’s often the smaller works, especially in animation and side programming, where the real surprises tend to surface.

This year feels particularly strong in that regard. Whether by design or coincidence, animation has a noticeable presence, adding texture to an already diverse lineup. Now in its 43rd year, LAAPFF continues to offer plenty to explore across its five-day run. Here are my picks worth seeking out:

113 Words For You Today

A team of workers is sent to planet Gliese 12b to build a gravitational portal. To survive the cold, each person is limited to 138 words per day. Soo chooses his words carefully. Even a groan from pain feels like a loss. When a blizzard hits, he risks everything to retrieve a vital crystal, too reserved to ask for help. Lost in the storm, he survives the night in a crashed cable car.

Returning at last, exhausted but alive, he picks up the phone, calls Earth, and waits. When the line connects, he smiles and proudly says, “Hi sweetie, I saved 113 words for you today.”

113 Words For You Today