Here’s what Animation World Magazine wrote in 2007: The most painless educational film you may ever see is Oli’s Chance (“Lucky Oli”). If you’re living in Europe your child may actually see it before you do. It was produced by Studio Soi, makers of Annie & Boo and the show-opening, show-stopping spark plug Bunnies from The Animation Show year two, and it was commissioned by Deutsche Bahn AG as a public service to raise schoolchildren’s consciousness about railyard safety.

It’s learning without the hugging, and more dramatic than moralizing, skipping over didacticism and getting to real emotional truths. Directors Saschka Unseld and Johannes Weiland have created fantastic 3D environments full of sunbeams and late-afternoon particulate matter, backed with impressionistic cloud backdrops and seen through an organically hovering hand-held camera. The character designs are untethered by realism, with friendly cartoon proportions that earn quick sympathy. Most startling of all is the acting — the facial articulation is so keen, the movements so subtle, and the animators’ choices so right, a whole panoply of emotions is communicated with the smallest gestures."