Here We Go Again

🔗 10 Things We’re Paying Attention To

1. S/W Team Picks for 2025 - One of our favorite pieces of the year, these are not the best shorts of 2025 (that is determined by our Short Awards in February). Instead, S/W team members are asked to share the film they love the most or return to most frequently from this year’s selections. A fun, diverse, and very watchable selection.

2. Six Staff Picks Rescinded by Vimeo Threaten Curatorial Brand - We touched upon this a couple of months ago, but Chris O’Falt did the work to follow up on the story. Kara Grace Miller of S/W selection, My Neighbor’s Yard, went on the record, as did Phoebe Jane Hart of Bug Diner, about how their Staff Picks were rescinded, which led to speculation about editorial independence of the company’s esteemed Curation Team. Official statements from Vimeo and its CEO Philip Moyer, blame “internal processes” as the company rolled out what sounds like an automated machine learning algorithm to flag suspect content (similar to YouTube’s), and the films were subsequently reinvited. But Hart and others are unconvinced, stating that “Vimeo’s corporate side took my film down for the same exact reason they want to put it back up, risk management.”

3. Talking Shorts Survey of Top Shorts of 2025 - The European short film magazine has a fun approach to its year-end list. They survey and print a top three from a wide-ranging group of film programmers and academics. I usually contribute, but was lazy this year. Céline shared her picks, though, alongside programmers from TIFF, Berlinale, PÖFF, and elsewhere.

4. The 2025 Music Video Wrap Report - If you want to stay fresh on music videos, my former colleague Doug Klinger’s blog is a must-subscribe. He put out his year-end report on trends in the Music Video scene and dropped a Top 20 of his personal faves from 2025 as well.

   

5. Evangelion to celebrate 30th Anniversary With New Short - The iconic anime series refuses to end. After a massive 4-film reinterpretation of the original 1996 saga was completed in 2021, a new announcement suggests we’ll get more Eva in 2026 with a 13-minute short supervised by Hideaki Anno himself.

6. Canada’s Top Ten - I’ve been outspoken in my love and admiration for the Canada Top Ten, which every year compiles an official top ten features and shorts list for the nation. More countries should copy it! A couple of years ago I put out this little collection, grabbing a single short from each of the prior ten lists. Anyway, the 2025 list is now out!

7. Brand Storytelling Sells to AI Company - 2025 was the year we got interested in brand filmmaking again, and 2026 sees one of the key organizations in defining this trend get bought. Aivanta, an “AI-first experiential media and technology holding company,” acquires the parent company behind Brand Storytelling and the Elevate Conferences.

8. Women Directors Share Hits 7-Year Low - The end of the year saw the latest report from USC’s influential Annenberg Institute, suggesting that gender equality in film and TV directing has stalled. Read the full report.

9. How Independent Film Will Be Rewired in 2026 - I’ve been a fan of Dana Harris-Bridson’s big-idea for indie creators column in Indiewire since it launched 7 months ago. She sums up many of the ideas explored to date in this latest piece.

10. What to Watch This Weekend - Two-time S/W filmmaker Charlie Polinger (A Place to Stay, Fuck Me, Richard) has his debut feature, The Plague, in US theaters via IFC. A queer body horror that won a prize at Cannes Un Certain Regard in the Spring, stellar reviews + strong box office saw the film expand nationwide, so the timing is perfect to catch it if you haven’t yet. Check out the trailer below.

🏆 Awards Updates

• After viewing all 45 Oscar shortlisted films, Rob, Céline, and I make our official endorsements on what Academy voters should vote for next week. (Short of the Week)

• If you haven’t checked in since the shortlist announcement, a bunch of shortlisted films have come online—Night Boots, Playing God, All The Walls Came Down, plus more. (Shortverse Collection)

• The Cinema Eye Honors announced winners last night. Netflix acquisition All the Empty Rooms took the short film prize. (Deadline)

• The shortlisted animation short, The Three Sisters, surprised observers who had never heard of its unknown filmmaker. Turns out it was actually created by a celebrated grandmaster who submitted the film anonymously. (Animation Magazine)

• Disney-Pixar did not have a film make the animation shortlist, so they acquired one of the favorites for Disney+ (Deadline)

• The European Film Awards work by having a national film festival nominate a short for the continental prize. That list of 30 films is then whittled to 5 official nominees, with the winner announced next week. Festival Scope is offering free virtual tickets to screen many of these initially nominated films, including 4/5 of the final nominees. It’s a great opportunity to catch up on the cream of the 2025 European festival circuit. (Festival Scope)

📅 This Week on Short of the Week