Indie-pendence Day

🔗 10 Things We’re Paying Attention To

1. Palm Springs Wraps - Palm Springs Shortfest wrapped last week and announced its winners on Sunday. In the last edition of this newsletter I shared a clever animation from John Kelly about his experience at film festivals, and lo and behold, Kelly won the Best of the Festival Award for his short, Retirement Plan. Congrats! If you want to learn more about the winners, we’ve gathered pages for all 38 of them in a special Shortverse collection.

2. Congrats to the New Academy Members! - In an announcement last week, 534 new members will be inducted into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Now that short films have their own branch, the list contains dozens of S/W and short film figures—far too many to call out individually. However, alums were added to the Acting, Animation, Doc, Producing, Directing, Cinematography, and Writing branches as well.

3. The NyTimes Takes Its Turn at a 21st Century Film List - This was all over my feeds last week, and so is old news by now. However, I’ve wanted to do a 21st-century shorts list, and thus will use this to solicit your thoughts on that.
   
   The NyTimes‘ attempt is nicely designed with fun social interactivity, such as the ability to view contributor top tens and create your own. Still, the process they used creates a homogenizing effect—I’m not even a huge movie buff, but have seen 87/100 here. Also, the level of diversity on display would have gotten the NyTimes raked over the coals 5 years ago. So it raises an interesting meta-question—how do we prefer our lists? Consensus-seeking and authoritative, but safe and conservative? Or more individualistic and daring, but prone to obscurantism and check-box seeking? If we did a shorts version of this, what would be important to you? Reply to this email, I’d love to know.

4. More Writing on Micro-Series - On the heels of the Ankler feature we shared, it feels like micro-series are having a moment, with coverage in Indiewire and a thoughtful blog post from Jon Stahl now too. I’ve been intrigued by the concept for a while, and will now shut up for a bit about it, but is anyone you know a fan of these?

5. Panel-Talk on a Short’s Life-Cycle - At ECAM Forum, Talking Shorts hosted a worthwhile panel with advice on how to think about your short holistically, from production to fests to distribution. Our own Céline Roustan took part—I learn stuff from her all the time, so now you should too!

6. Meet the JetBlue x Focus Features x Gotham Student Winners - An underrated brand competition that honors student filmmakers, the competition is in its 5th year and Filmmaker Magazine is hosting interviews with the recipients, including links to the winning shorts.

7. Diaries from Participants at the Sundance Director Labs - Sticking with Filmmaker Mag for a minute, they’ve been steadily releasing new filmmaker diaries from this year’s Sundance Director Lab participants, including from S/W alums like Alexandra Qin, and the creative duo of Kasey Elise Walker & Andrea Ellsworth. Hear first-hand what the legendary lab has been like.

8. 50% of Brand Video Will Be AI-Generated by the End of the Year - At least that’s according to Rob Sheard in a new piece on his Substack. I’m not sure I agree, but it’s a well-reasoned case.

9. 🫡 to Amid Amidi of Cartoon Brew - A legend of independent arts media on the internet, Amidi announced that he has sold Cartoon Brew and is stepping down from involvement with the site. The good news? Former EiC of the site, Jamie Lang, is taking over, so there is strong reason to believe the spirit and mission of the site will be preserved. Amidi has been a peer and advisor to S/W over the years, so congrats on closing this chapter, friend!

10. What To Watch This Weekend - Plenty of films and TV from alums to choose from. First off, Sean Dunne, a pioneer of the internet profile doc, is self-releasing his latest feature-length documentary Wild Magic. In the TV space, I have been enjoying Murderbot on AppleTV+, which is a light (though violent) sci-fi comedy based on the hit book series by Martha Wells. S/W award-winner Roaseanne Liang (Do No Harm) directs the penultimate episode of the season, which comes out today. Finally, try out Heads of State, a new big-budget action-comedy on Amazon. Ilya Naishuller (Biting Elbows - Bad Motherfucker) directs, and if he has not been credited as the most tasteful of filmmakers, he is underrated as an internet success story. That music video 12 years ago, instantly launched what has now turned into an enduring and productive Hollywood career. Cheers Ilya.

🪐 Into the Shortverse

🧠 Brain Food: The Best Zombie Short Films

Alongside many other I caught up on the “28” zombie franchise in preparation for its return last week. We have a soft spot for zombies at S/W actually, and were happy to revisit some of our favorite zombie short films for this collection.

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🗓️ Best of the Month: June 2025

14 shorts make the cut in our monthly curated round-up of best new shorts to land on Shortverse.

📅 This Week on Short of the Week