- Shorts Weekly
- Posts
- And the Oscar Goes To...
And the Oscar Goes To...
We reflect on Hollywood's big night, and look ahead to the start of SXSW
Jason Sondhi
March 04, 2025
Ramadan Mubarak!
A couple of days out from a largely enjoyable Oscar ceremony, I confess to feeling a sense of anticlimax seeing awards season conclude. While there are demerits to the type of horse-race discourse it inspires, as film slowly shrinks from its monocultural status into a popular but niche passion, it is enormously satisfying to have a shared touchstone to latch on to. Especially for us short film stans, nothing else inspires us to discuss, debate, gush, trash, predict, and cheer for the same shorts, all together.
But then, it’s over. I’ll miss it, but three winners have been crowned. Congratulations to the teams behind In the Shadow of the Cypress, The Only Girl in the Orchestra, and I’m Not a Robot on your success!
Read our coverage on Short of the Week for our instant reactions on the short form category winners. We did poorly this year, going 0/3 in our predictions, and with further reflection, I am still stumped by what it means!
What does seem clear as a takeaway from the night overall is that its soon-to-be-famous closing statement of “Long live Independent Cinema!” was not the battle cry of the marginalized, but just what cinema is nowadays. Last year’s Barbenheimer phenomenon looks like the exception that proves the rule, as only 2 out of the last 10 Best Picture winners have come from a traditional big studio. All 6 above-the-line winning films, plus Best Animation, Best Documentary, and Best International, were financed independently. The Oscar-Nominated Shorts theatrical run outgrossed Best Picture nominee Nickel Boys at the box-office.
Cinema is receding from the mainstream, and while that’s sad, it is an exciting opportunity too, represented in perhaps the biggest story of the night, the $3.7M budgeted Flow—a unique and personal work—upsetting studio films that cost 50x. Oscar is a leveling force in filmmaking now between the distinctive voices that we seek to unearth and nurture in shorts and the film industry’s most glamorous heights. There is great potential in that.
Coming up In this edition of Shorts Weekly, we’ll:
Link out to 10 Things…including Sean Baker’s only short film, the secret behind the success of Flow, and a big upcoming grant offer from Vimeo
Turn our eyes to Austin for one of our favorite short lineups in festival-land
And, as always, the latest S/W Official Selections
🔗 10 Things We’re Paying Attention To
New “Short Films Explained” - The latest in our YT video series sees Rob peppering the talented genre filmmaker, Eros V, with your questions about his Stiges and SXSW stand-out short Meat Puppet.
Sean Baker’s Only Credited Short Film - In 2015, the man who now has more Oscars than Steven Spielberg, shot a 12min narrative fashion film. You can watch it now.
The Underrated Secret Behind the Success of Flow - Animation Obsessive argues that the film’s Oscar win is the triumph of Europe’s Co-Production network.
Trend Watch: Sundance Shorts Online - Trokas Duras, the US Dramatic Winner at Sundance 2025, is now online. It is the 1st Sundance 2025 short film to hit the internet, but between 2012 and 2019, an average of 6 shorts were online before the festival even started. Does this speak more to Sundance’s programming, or is it a re-prioritization of festival runs by filmmakers?
Technicolor Group Collapses - The parent company of high-end Animation and VFX studios MPC, Mikros Animation, and The Mill ran out of money last week in a hi-profile implosion. For the short film world, The Mill is ubiquitous in the commercial and music video spaces and was credited on dozens of a S/W selected shorts. Cartoon Brew has a timeline of events and I’ve been browsing r/vfx to stay abreast of the fallout.
New Opps for Filmmakers - Two new short film contests to put on your radar: the first is the Musicbed Challenge, a monthlong sprint to create a short doc, narrative, or ad spec to compete for a $100k prize package of cash, gear and services. Deadline is March 26. Then, just announced, is the Vimeo Short Film Grant. Sponsored by Nikon, five teams will be awarded $30k to create an original short film with mentorship from judges like David Lowery and Charlotte Wells. Filmmakers will need a pitch, treatment or script, and a detailed budgeting plan, among other requirements. Applications open up next week, and run till April 18th.
Established Filmmakers, Do This Please - I recently discovered that Mark Baker, best known as co-creator of the Peppa the Pig franchise, has remastered three of his early Oscar-nominated shorts and placed them on YouTube for free. Fantastic. Artists, if you make good, please don’t neglect your early work—let new generations be inspired by it!
Learn Animation From Bill Plympton - Speaking of old animation masters, Bill Plympton has announced a new masterclass on his YouTube channel. A virtual option will be available, but he will prioritize in-person attendance in NYC.
Chinese Animation “Capsules Project” on YT - Catsuka has alerted us that seasons 1 & 2 of this ambitious anthology is now streaming on YouTube with English subs. Fresh off Ne Zha 2 becoming the highest-grossing animation in history, this collection of 24 shorts, which originally premiered on Bilibili, is a great introduction to the exciting and fast-growing world of Chinese animation.
Watch: Common Side Effects Ep. 1 - From S/W alums behind Scavengers Reign, this Adult Swim and Max show is knocking my socks off right now! If you’ve been tempted to give it a spin, maybe the release of the first episode on YouTube can give you the nudge you need.
🪐 Into the Shortverse
Still from the new short by Oscar-winner Sam Davis
SXSW Film begins on March 7th and you can preview the 54 film shorts lineup in a new Shortverse Collection. Annually one of our favorite short film slates, new films from former “Short of the Year” winner Winnie Cheung, Oscar-winner Sam Davis, and doc rising star Charles Frank are among the shorts we’re most looking forward to.
***
Ten films make the cut in our monthly celebration of great new shorts added to Shortverse. From an absolutely wild comedy that was the buzz of SXSW last year, to one of the coolest looking animations I’ve seen in ages, it was a great month for discoveries on the platform.
Thanks for reading this week’s Shorts Weekly. Do you have a tip for us or would you like to advertise in this newsletter? Just reply to this email to get in touch.