The New York International Children's Festival starts today and runs for three weekends. We're thrilled for the New Yorkers among you, but the bounty for most of us will be on the festival's praiseworthy website, GKIDS.TV, where the festival is "screening" 29 short films or clips from longer ones. Most of them are standalone shorts, a few of them live action but most animated or made using stop-motion or clay techniques.

You can browse the full set here, or let us be your screening room as we showcase a few of our favorites throughout the weekend. The first on my shortlist: Devin Bell's "Crank Balls," the story of a world of very grumpy creatures that is overwhelmed by an infectious happiness.

- Jeremiah