Random Acts (UK)
Season 5
Channel 4's late-night, post-pub serving of the world's craziest and most creative short films curated and hosted by Zawe Ashton. Featuring brand new talent and experimental work from more established names, the shorts are a heady mixture of music, animation, dance, visual art, spoken word and uncategorisable creative brilliance - a selection for which the phrase 'only on Channel 4...' could have been designed.
Where to Watch Season 5
6 Episodes
- Episode 1E1
Episode 1This episode conjures up internet cats like you've never seen them before, a jazz ensemble made entirely of bird puppets, a Peckham auntie who reclaims the streets on horseback, and opera reimagined as a partially-nude fantasia. Plus: the menstrual underworld awaits in an animated music video for Swedish punk ShitKid. - Episode 2E2
Episode 2A visual artist lights up a ghost town, west African folklore meets fashion film, an insta-perfect life is a waking nightmare, and Noel Fielding plays a dying angel. Plus: Maki Yokishura's family-friendly doggy delights, and an inclusive dance group animated in powerful stop motion. - Episode 3E3
Episode 3This episode features painterly animation and the first dance filmed in Antarctica. Social media gives an animator the blues, bodies collide in new configurations in an elegant movement piece, and there's a vivid reflection of a fractured mind. Plus: cut-out animation of a gender-neutral plant. - Episode 4E4
Episode 4A collaboration between ballet dancer Sophie Rebecca and poet Ash Palmisciano. Plus: teenage anxiety creates a glitch in the system, Botis Seva explores parenthood through dance, a teenager confronts her doppelgangers, an impactful artwork examines gun violence, and Bernard Cribbins narrates a visual deep-dive into woodland nostalgia. - Episode 5E5
Episode 5This episode includes a short film by Debbie Tucker Green made to the sounds of a little-known Cocteau Twins B-side. A magical tapestry comes to life, Brooklyn-based animator Qieer Wang provides a champagne bath for our emotions, a young filmmaker smashes the state with a capitalist parable, and the daily grind becomes a Welsh-language poem with Osian Rhys Jones.