Introducing… "Shorts Weekly" 🎉

Meet our new weekly newsletter from Short of the Week + Shortverse

Author

Jason Sondhi
July 14, 2023

Well, this is a bit different! For 15+ years, we’ve emailed a feed of Short of the Week selections as a “Weekly Recap”. However, since the launch of our new short film platform, Shortverse, I’ve been writing another, non-automated, weekly email, and I’ve come to love it—more casual than a film review or researched article, but more considered and impactful than screaming into the social-media maw, it’s a great medium for sharing news, industry insights, and updates from the world of short film.

So, starting today, we’re combining the two into one mega newsletter that combines S/W picks along with these bonus items. I think you’ll like it, but your feedback is welcome!

—Jason Sondhi

📅 This Week on Short of the Week

Donkerster (Darker) by Frank van den Bogaart

When her father goes missing, a young girl enters the woods to seek out a mythological creature believed to collect the stories of dying beings.

It's Snowing in the Summer by Gladimir Gelin

Headstrong friends, on their way to a 30th birthday party, debate the differences of the Black Harlem experience.

Hangtime by Chester Vincent Toye

A young artist receives a disturbing introduction to the art world during the delivery of a controversial sculpture.

Rumi by Aisha Amin

A budding actress is invited to an open casting call and comes face to face with a deeply problematic & troubling industry.

Meet the Gatekeepers: Nicolas Schmerkin (Autour de Minuit)

The trail-blazing animation producer/distributor joins us to discuss distribution, awards, and the changing face of the short film industry.

It’s an eclectic mix this time out as Chelsea kicks us off with a film she loved from Fantasia, Frank van den Bogaart’s taut father/daughter folkloric horror short, Darker.

We followed with a series of contemporary stories that interrogate power structures in America from minority perspectives. Adam, a New Yorker of some tenure, writes about Gladimir Gelin’s NYC tale, It’s Snowing in the Summer, which utilizes a gentrifying Harlem as both a backdrop and metaphor to explore the diverging perspectives of two old friends.

Rob writes about Chester Toye’s sly art-world provocation, Hangtime, and the filmmaker’s critique of how black trauma is commodified in elite spaces. Toye does not pick an easy target for his satire and instead “brings the Black art worker, artist, and collector into one frame, critically depicting a broader artistic ecosystem.” Then, Céline highlights Aisha Amin’s Rumi, which takes aim at the world of fashion. “Making Rumi was my attempt to investigate the experience of being a Muslim woman in an industry built around appearances, performance, and tokenism”

Lastly, Rob brings us the 2nd installment of our new series, Meet the Gatekeepers, which seeks to identify important individuals in the short film ecosystem who possess the power to fund, produce, program, or distribute your work. We ask them about what they do, what they look for, and how they discover and engage with talent. We thank Nicolas Schmerkin for joining!

🪐 Shortverse Collections

We have a number of tennis fans on the team and the ongoing Championships at Wimbledon have not only provided me with great background TV during the workday but they also inspired this silly playlist of 9 shorts that feature the sport in ways big and small. Featuring early work from Lloyd Lee Choi (whose Same Old was a Cannes Official Selection) viral animator Victoria “vewn” Vincent, and James Gallagher, last seen at Tribeca 2023 with the acclaimed feature documentary, Songs About Fucking.

As part of Rob’s interview with Nicolas Schmerkin, we asked the lauded producer to take the proverbial trip down memory lane and curate for us a selection of shorts that he thinks best defines his company. Stretching 16 years, the collection is a personal guide to one of animation’s most influential filmographies and includes iconic shorts like the Oscar-winner Logorama and work from Unicorn Wars director, Alberto Vázquez.

🍿 New Shortverse releases we’ve been enjoying…

PONY by Halo Starling | Shortverse

A bit raw, but all the more resonant for it, Halo Starling’s short premiered on Shortverse yesterday. In it, the writer/director mines their experience as a gender-confused millennial child growing up in the '90s to tell this story of a pre-teen who tries to embody their true gender and sexual identities in the wake of a devastating family tragedy.

Robot Hoarders by Andrew Edgehill | Shortverse

A fun piece of nonsense, Andrew mashes up two concepts: robots, and the A&E reality TV show Hoarders. Throw them through an AI wash and you get this piece. Is he onto something?

😎 Fun Stuff to Check Out

The LA Times ran a piece on short films streaming on the internet. — I’m quoted a couple of times, but the piece mainly centers on our friends at Omeleto.

All of Ireland’s Oscar-nominated shorts in a single free collection — A lot of the highlights have been online for a while, like Fifty Percent Grey by Ruari Robinson but others haven’t, like Cartoon Saloon’s delightful Late Afternoon.

Vanity Fair launches A-List Interview Series - We’ve got a lot of admiration for Franklin Leonard who is hosting the new video series. Stephanie Hsu is his first guest.

Kickstarter Campaign for Grace, a “Black Southern Gothic” short film - I already contributed to this interesting-sounding project from Natalie J. Harris that is peppered with S/W alums. Check it out.

Cheers to the actors of SAG-AFTRA as they’ve joined the writers guild in striking against the AMPTP here in the States. These things are never black & white, but increasingly the ability of new talent to enter and grow within the industry has felt unviable. With another guild in tow, perhaps negotiations can take on a new urgency.