Preview: London International Animation Festival, various venues, London

There is more to animation than Pixar and Disney blockbusters. At this year's London International Animation Festival (LIAF), more than 200 international animation short films, many British premieres, will be screened over six days.

The abstract animation film The Aroma of Tea by Anglo-Dutch director Michael Dudok De Wit is painted entirely with tea; the claymation film For the Love of God by the British director Joe Tucker features the voices of Steve Coogan and Sir Ian McKellen; the Russian director Alexander Petrov uses oil paint on glass film to make his beautiful hand-painted modern fairy tale My Love; while the animated documentary Camouflage by the British director Jonathan Hodgson investigates life growing up with a schizophrenic parent.

"Our festival sticks to short films, otherwise many of them don't get seen in the UK. There are so few outlets for animation shorts, except at festivals. Even if they are shown on television, it is usually at 2am," says festival director and LIAF founder Nag Vladermersky.

Highlights include recent Royal College of Art graduate Johnny Kelly's Procrastination, a comical study about, well, putting things off. The long short Everything Will Be OK, about a man searching for the meaning of life, by the American director Don Hertzfeldt, won this year's jury prize for short film award at Sundance Film Festival. The hand-painted film The Boy Who Loved the Rain by the Australian director Thomas Fraser shows a boy drowning in rain.

The animated documentary Asperger and Proud by UK director Molly Okell takes a light-hearted look at Asperger's syndrome, while the digital-styled short film Leviathan by the Croatian director Simon Bogojevic-Narath is inspired by gaming and net animation aesthetics.

21-26 August (www.liaf.org.uk)