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Celebrate Good Times
The writers can go back to work, we share our Unsanctioned Contest winner, and preview the UK's biggest short film fest.
Jason Sondhi
September 29, 2023
The news is all over so you don’t need us to share it, but congratulations to the writers for prevailing in their labor dispute! The guild is understandably proud about waxing the AMPTP in the bargaining process, garnering a host of concessions on points that were once considered “non-negotiable” (summary here).
That said, certain deal points are perhaps being misinterpreted, and notable critics are doubling down. Also, mixed in with the celebration, I sense a subtle note of mourning in recognition that the ‘streaming wars’ era is now well and truly over.
Many have mocked the studios for their headlong rush to disrupt their existing businesses in order to chase the Netflix streaming example, but, from our perspective, the ‘content glut’ that resulted was an unalloyed good for our community of short filmmakers, providing unprecedented opportunities to make the leap from independent filmmaking to the established industry. What will the landscape look like for “unproven” talents going forward? That is something to watch. Have thoughts? There has been plenty of good conversation in our Discord server, so join in.
The future of the industry may be unknowable, but what is known are our Short of the Week picks and the winner of our Unsanctioned Shorts Competition!
📅 This Week on Short of the Week
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The first half of the workweek was dominated by animation, as Céline, then Rob, put in work reviewing a series of European award-winners that all deal in some way with family and connection.
In Trona Pinnacles from Mathilde Parquet, that familial connection is strained by dysfunction as the artist draws from her own life to portray a family vacation that is ready to explode. The Other Half, from NFTS student Lina Kalcheva, deals with that connection’s lack—this Cannes Cinefondation stop-motion short imagines a fantasy world where romantic couplehood is literally physical and separate beings merge into one! Lastly, courtesy of Miyu Distribution, comes Pachyderm by Stéphanie Clément. A truly stunning effort, I won’t share much other than Rob’s suggestion that “…it could well be one of the best shorts I’ve seen this year.”
I close out our programming by writing about Fireworks from Nikita Grushin. The winner of our first Unsanctioned Shorts Competition (more below), I was impressed by the film’s formal approach which puts you unnervingly inside the headspace of a young man on a mission to blow up a bomb in a public space and yet maintains an empathetic and humanistic perspective. A riveting viewing experience.
🏆 The Winner of the Unsanctioned Shorts Competition!
Last month we opened a call for submissions to a free, stand-alone contest designed specifically for filmmakers who have difficulty submitting to festivals and competitions due to economic sanctions against their countries.
We received hundreds of films that our team screened and, after careful deliberating, we have chosen Fireworks by Nikita Grushin as the winner!
Congrats to Nikita whose film is now a Short of the Week Official Selection and is featured on our YouTube channel. He also receives a free Shortverse PRO membership and prizes from our contest partner, WeTransfer.
Read more in our announcement post, but first, we want to thank the hundreds of filmmakers who shared their work with us, it’s been a pleasure viewing your films!
🪐 Shortverse Collections
Bureau Chief for Short of the Week UK, Rob compiles for Shortverse a preview collection of 10 of our most-anticipated shorts that are playing the Bristol festival over the next few days. The largest short-film festival in the country, Encounters is a key stop for UK filmmakers while boasting a well-rounded international slate. While these films are not online yet, we’ve got trailers for all, and a couple have already grabbed a spot on our release calendar. So, be a cool kid and learn all about them before their online debut.
The latest edition of our spotlight on films you can discover on Shortverse has a whopping 12 films in it including an allegorical Appalachian folktale, an Unsanctioned runner-up, and a short piece with one of the better titles I’ve seen. Enjoy!
💡 Product Updates
A quick Shortverse product update to close things out this week:
🕵🏽♂️ Show Advanced Filters For All Users
We just opened up one of Shortverse’s coolest features. Previously a PRO-only tool, you can now use Advanced Filters to execute supersearches from the FILMS page.
In the picture above I wanted to only look at:
Animations > S/W-selected > From France - Voila!
What kinds of searches will you try? Also, filmmakers! Supersearch is only as good as the data in it, so make sure to be filling out all the fields of your film pages!