The best thing about “The 21st Annual Animation Show of Shows,” an anthology of animated shorts by students and professionals around the world, is the variety of modes and techniques presented.

The opening short, “Kids,” directed by Michael Frei and Mario von Rickenbach, communicates its theme of conformity through cookie-cutter-like figures moving with almost liquid smoothness over a blank field. Another black-and-white picture, “Hounds,” directed by Amit Cohen and Ido Shapira, is rendered in rough pen-and-ink style with plenty of negative space, the better to create a gritty magical realism for its nature-versus-nurture allegory.

“Daughter,” an anxious fever dream about losing a parent from Daria Kashcheeva, uses stop-motion puppet animation. The design of the characters suggests the strong influence of the Quay Brothers, but Kashcheeva’s persistent use of unusual focal effects brings the piece into a dimension of its own.