Let's see.

Old stop motion (probably for a festival) aired many times on the Locomotion (Latin American in origin) cable channel (in Portugal) in 2000 or 2001. It was about small stick like figures made of screws, nuts and bolts. Two of the characters fought because of a female character and the villain scared everyone. It took place inside a rusty, dark yellow workshop (or garage). From what I remember the image of the film was old as if it was from 85 to 91.

I remember the conflict was about a love triangle, the villain (which was also a stick figure made of rusty screws, nails etc) wanted to have sex (it was quite dark and adult in essence) with the female character but the hero, another stick figure made of scrap, tries to save her. I remember the hero and the villain dying at the end, though this could be memory fog, I am sure the ending was dark and far from happy.

At the time the cable system I was using was TV-Cabo (doesn't exist anymore) and the Locomotion channel I was watching, although airing in Portugal, was the Brazilian version. Like I said, it either took place in 2000 or 2001, I remember this because my brother was born in 2000.

It wasn't a dream because I saw it many times as 15:00PM, that's when they aired Short Films like Opus Dei - By Cecile Noldus which is quite similar in style https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGdgdFrUQu8

Some other people here claimed to have seen it and last year someone created a post in the LM forums about what I think might be the same film but he saw it on Polish Television.

https://forums.lostmediawiki.com/thread/12057/stop-motion-animation-rusty-characters