YORK'S Aesthetica Short Film Festival is spreading its wings by presenting eight family-friendly shorts from the 2013 festival at 25 cinemas nationwide this weekend, curated specially for the Picturehouse Kids’ Club.

Among the cinemas screening the 61-minute selection of funny, touching films on Saturday morning will be City Screen, York, where Estefan, Pipkin, The Honey Plot, Kapitan Hu, The Little Red Paper Ship, Stick, The Odd Sound Out and Out Of The Ordinary will be shown from11.15am.

Estefan, directed by Jeff Call, from Brigham Young University, follows the world’s greatest hairdresser, who must face his biggest ever challenge to please a very demanding client. Failure is simply not an option.

Pamela Wyn Shannon’s delightful Pipkin is a stop-motion animation about a sycamore seed whose destiny depends on which way the winds blow, as the filmmaker explores the relationship between folk memory, landscape and belonging (a somewhat adult description for a children's film, surely).

Directed by Bournemouth Arts University graduate Al Cox, The Honey Plot involves a bear with a stolen beehive trying to flee his country as a mob of angry beekeepers in hot pursuit attempt to stop his getaway.

In Basil Vogt's cleverly crafted Kapitan Hu (Captain Hu), the captain finds himself run aground in the Alps after a severe storm. A helpful Alpine farmer discovers new uses for Hu's nautical equipment but the captain draws the line at this resourcefulness. The director creates his animation by scratching lines on film, accompanying it with music by Hipp Mathis.

Aleksandra Zareba's The Little Red Paper Ship is a poetic story of finding courage when facing the big, wide world as the ship of the title decides to start a journey that will change its life forever.

Stick, directed by Ole Christoffer Haga, follows an abandoned dog who encounters a friendly stranger on his day off from work. Afraid of losing his new-found friend, the canine attaches himself like glue to this man and won't let go.

Pernille Sihm and Ida Maria Schouw Andreasen, from The Animation Workshop, present The Odd Sound Out, a tale of a band of invisible creatures that decides to expel a musician whose odd sound is disrupting the mood of the ensemble. Will he ever find a band with room for an odd sound?

A second film fromThe Animation Workshop, Tommy Kinnerup's Out Of The Ordinary, completes Saturday morning bill with its story of a man bored by his office routine who is forced by unexpected events to open his eyes to something greater.

Set up by Aesthetica culture magazine editor Cherie Federico, the Aesthetica Short Film Festival is in its fourth year of championing and supporting independent short film-making in Britain and internationally. This year's festival will take place from November 6 to 9 in assorted historic and iconic locations across York.

In 2013, the festival introduced its family friendly screening programme and it has now responded to popular demand by launching this weekend's Picturehouse Kids’ Club collection at cinemas that include the Hyde Park Cinema in Leeds.

More information can be found at picturehouses.co.uk and tinyurl.com/kwk7a6b; City Screen tickets are on sale on 0871 902 5726 or at picturehouses.co.uk/york