Alex Orrelle, the owner of Tel Aviv-based animation studio Crew 972, conceived this short film below, titled Irma’s Car, which is a clever comment on the recent invasion of sub-compact cars. JP Vine, an in-house director, handled the art direction, and the short was brought to life in a combination of Flash and 3D.

Ari Folman’s animated documentary Waltz With Bashir premiered yesterday in France and is generating a good deal of positive buzz at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

The story deals with the Israeli Army’s mission in the 1982 Lebanon War, intercut with animated interviews with those who took part. The UK Guardian called the film, which cost approximately 2 million to produce, “extraordinary” and the film’s website reveals that it took about 4 years to produce. The film’s art director, David Polonsky, completed 80% of the movie’s 2,000 illustrations, which were based on video footage shot prior to production. These illustrations were then brought to life in a combination of Flash animation, traditional animation and CGI. The director of animation, Yoni Goodman, created the animation process that was instituted on the film, and he eventually revved up his team to where they were outputting an average of 1.5 seconds of footage a day. Goodman was supported by lead animators Tal Gadon and Gali Edelbaum. Waltz With Bashir is one of 22 films in contention for the Palm d’Or, or “Best Picture” at Canne. Here is the trailer, subtitled in English.

In 2007 Israel’s biggest rock star, Shlomo Artzi, released a new album titled Shfuim (Sane), which went double platinum in a matter of days. Artzi then approached Highlander Productions, an Israel-based content studio, to produce the music video for the first single, Tetaaru Lachem (Imagine).

Kob, the Israeli indie rocker, has called up on Mysh and Oren Mashkovski to animate his most recent music video. The track is titled Fixed World, and it was animated by Roy Manor and Mashkovski. The three characters in the video are major, historical figures from Israeli history.

Tamar Moshkovitz, a designer and illustrator, has teamed up with industrial designer Shlomi Schillinger to create Plushood. They’ve created 5 plush toys and several Flash-animated shorts to help introduce the world. My favorite character is the cat – James Richardson the 3rd.