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Festiv(al) Season
A cheat sheet for Oscar voters, Festivals arrive on Shortverse, TikTok Stars, and alums on the Blacklist
Jason Sondhi
December 15, 2023
Happy Friday! Oscar voting is live for the shortlist, and we’re doing our part for voters by collecting ‘For Your Consideration’ films that we featured on Short of the Week.
Going through these films (and dozens of recently released contenders we have not yet featured) has made me pause for a moment to reflect—was the famous 2013 Oscar race, when the entire Best Animation Short Subject nominee pool decided to go online, really 10 whole years ago? Before that, seeing any high-profile awards contender online was a rarity. Now, an online release as part of an FYC promotional push feels almost compulsory. How times change…Good luck to all the film teams in the running!
📅 This Week on Short of the Week
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The calendar crunch necessitated that this latest work from Colin Arisman go out over the weekend. Frankly, the comparative leisure of a Saturday is a good pairing for it, as this David vs. Goliath story of a fishing town fighting back against a powerful mining company deserves your full attention, with Rob complimenting its “attention-grabbing craft” and “flawlessly paced edit.”
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Another S/W alum returning to the site, this latest short from Thanasis Neofotistos closes out his loose “travel trilogy” which began with Patision Avenue and Route-3. A slow-motion disaster towards a panic attack, the short has been a festival favorite since its Locarno 2022 premiere, with stops at Toronto, Sundance, Clermont, and Palm Springs. Online now and on our YouTube in time for awards season courtesy of Radiator IP.
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Winner of the Audience Award at NFFTY, this film by William Lancaster is a sharply observed drama punctuated by moments of dark levity. As described by Céline in her review, the film is inspired by aspects of the director’s life and family, authentically capturing both the frustration and love within a mother/daughter relationship—one that is being forced to change due to age and time.
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Spotlighted in last week’s edition, Wednesday saw the release of this piece from Bertil Nilsson that evocatively traces a relationship across two timelines in a loose and improvisational way. Rob praises the fresh and challenging approach employed by Nilsson while simultaneously appreciating how it is balanced by a tried-and-true narrative of love and loss.
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I wrote about this comedy by Austin-filmmaker Isaac Garza which stretches an absurd premise across 8 minutes of runtime while simultaneously executing a complicated single-take. Both aspects are flashy and deserving of praise, but the underlying morbidity of the humor provides an emotional heft that elevates the project, creating something more than the sum of its parts.
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Winner of “Best of the Festival” at Palm Springs 2023, this Oscar-contender from Liam LoPinto expertly blends live-action and animation to tell a cross-cultural, cross-generational ghost story that might just melt your heart. Céline is full of praise, saying that it is “both innovative and intricately layered” and that it delivers “a deeply touching and compelling narrative.”
🎊 Introducing Festivals on Shortverse
The Shortverse Product Team has been working hard for weeks on this latest new addition to the platform. We’ve brought 14,000+ festivals into the site with individual pages and a dedicated section. We know festivals are an important aspect of the short film world and think that we can help filmmakers navigate the immense amount of choices they are confronted with, as well as provide festivals with a new way to connect to filmmakers.
For filmmakers, this means it’s more valuable than ever to add your laurels to your SV page. For festival organizers, reach out to manage your listing and keep it up to date. We sent out an email earlier this week with more details, but if you missed it you can read it here.
🪐 Shortverse Collections
A cheat sheet for voters and hours of great watching for fans—16 short films that have featured on Short of the Week which are in the running for Oscar.
With festivals now on the platform, we can feature them in homepage collections too! Here is a collection we will be continually updating that lists prominent festivals with upcoming submission deadlines.
🍿 New releases you’ve been enjoying…
Kind of like this week’s featured pick, Call Your Mom, this short from Austin Kolodney takes a dumb premise and pushes it to its extremes. I dig it, especially the performances from familiar-face film actor George Basil and TikTok star Caitlin Reilly. Filmmaker Gregory Bordelon agrees, commenting:
👏🏽 To This Year’s Blacklist Writers
That’s SV member and S/W alum Alex Kavutskiy taking the 6th spot in the recently released Blacklist, the prestigious annual poll of Hollywood insiders asking what they think are the top unproduced screenplays in town.
Other members of the Shortverse community made the list, including Russell Goldman and Charlie Polinger. Congrats!
🎟 Coming soon that we’re excited about…
We’ll leave you again with one additional film that you can look forward to soon. From Emily Berge and Spencer Thielmann, two filmmakers with a knack for capturing the emotional rush of youth without succumbing to cliché or maudlin storytelling, comes this fun slice-of-life story set at the end of summer. After playing Palm Springs and Brooklyn FF, the short is scheduled to go live on December 18th.