Like some sweet torrent of sticky goodness, Stash 57 is an overwhelming mess of animation, VFX and inspiration packed with a full hour-long main program, plus five more films from PSST!3, great Behind the Scenes features and eight bonus MP3 tracks from Impactist.

The mania begins with an epic clown-infused robbery gone horribly wrong from Stink Digital and Redrum for Philips before zagging fitfully into three brilliant and surreal Scrabble spots for Mattel from Wizz in Paris. Animal Logic lets you taste the future in your mouth for Carlton Natural Blonde, Psyop saves the fairy tale princess with milk, Buck morphs and modulates with two spots for Mountain Dew, 1st Ave Machine bio-engineers several stunning new species for Samsung, The Mill casually slice off the backs of people’s heads for X-Box then turn around and let innocent youngsters sink into oblivion in a disturbing spot for Britain’s Forgotten Children charity.

The momentum continues through the titles and broadcast design section with Dvein’s visceral open for the F5 conference, Superfad’s promo package for Major League Baseball on Fox, Interspectacular’s opening for “New York Goes to Work” on VH1 with designs by Tristan Eaton and Digital Kitchen’s handmade work for the Seattle International Film Festival.

The second half of 57 introduces an international spectrum of Stash newcomers including Blue-Zoo studio from London with a cartoon romp called “Coalfinger” for Greenpeace, Arthur Jones and Zander Brimijoin from Brooklyn with Man Man’s tripped-out “Mister Jung Stuffed” video, the UK’s David Wilson and his “We Got Time” video for Moray McLaren featuring real time animation, The Ant Farm in LA are here with the cool new teaser for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, The Third Floor and Shadowplay Studios contribute a trove of new cinematics from Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, plus Anima Boutique in Helsinki with three snappy spots for Kopparberg and LA’s Ghost Town Media getting dark and carnal for the “Signs” video from Bloc Party.

Portland directing duo Kelly Meador and Daniel Elwing (aka Impactist) are back with an elegant and thoughtful new short called “Parallelostory”. Traditional animation fans will appreciate the feature film quality of Pepper Films’ character work on “Woods of Wisdom” for Gatorade, while CG devotees can revel in new work from againstallodds and Milford for Jet Blue, Optix Kreation for Inlinguia and Bontrust, the Gravity-Rhino Group for Pelephone, Glassworks for Indian motorbike maker Bajaj, PetPunk with a very cool charity video called “Who Shot the Silence” and Ben Steiger-Levine and Joshua Sherrett’s new video called “Mr Hurricane” for Beast out of Montreal.

We close the main program of 57 with a twisty little nightmare called “Taste of Surimi” from Jean-Francois Leroux, Thibaud Floutier, Gerome Payen-Kennedy and Pierre-Alain Dubois, four freshly minted major talents from Supinfocom in France.

The BONUS FILMS on Stash 57 are the final set of five brand new works from PSST!3, the latest incarnation of Bran Dougherty-Johnson’s adventure in collaborative motion art. Stash is pleased to present all 17 of the PSST!3 films spread over issues 55, 56 and 57.

The BONUS MUSIC on Stash 57 is a mini treasure chest of eight MP3s from directors/animators/photographers/musicians and all around renaissance duo Impactist.

The BEHIND THE SCENES lineup on 57 includes insightful features from Digital Kitchen on their Seattle Film Fest trailer, David Wilson on his video for Moray McLaren “We Got Time”, The Third Floor and Shadowplay Studios for the Red Alert 3 cinematics, Anima Boutique for the Kopparberg campaign, Gravity-Rhino Group for their Pelephone spot, and Supinfocom for “Taste of Surimi”.

Running time: 110 minutes