Message in a Bottle

📅 This Week on Short of the Week

For Your Consideration

When a video of kids dancing in the rain goes viral, it brings global attention to an unlikely ballet school outside Lagos, Nigeria. Now, Daniel Ajala — who learned ballet over YouTube — is training students to perform on the world stage.

From Jacob Krupnick, one of the most innovative directors of dance and movement, comes the inspirational story of passionate dancers who refuse to let their circumstances limit their dreams. Watch the film and learn more at the film website.

🔗 10 Things We’re Paying Paying Attention To

1. Buzzy Animated Feature Flow Hits US Theaters - Gints Zilbalodis was always precocious. A self-taught teenage animator working largely alone, he burst on the scene with Aqua, a short I staff picked at Vimeo in 2012. Over a decade later he returned to that debut short to inspire Flow, his Annecy-winning feature that is one of the best-reviewed films of the year. Congrats Gints! Revisit Rob’s 2019 interview to learn more about this talented animator.

2. Flux Fest Hosts Free Online Conversations Today - Short notice for this one, but Flux, which hosts a famous LA screening series for exciting directing talent, is in the middle of a multi-day fest and has some great Zoom talks scheduled today with talents we love, like Vallée Duhamel, Paul Trillo, and Nico Cassavecchia. Check them out and RSVP for free tickets here.

3. Vimeo Premieres Original Short for their Apple Vision App - S/W alum Jake Oleson delivered a keynote presentation for Flux this week and is also in the news for directing the first original spatial short film for Vimeo. Check out this interview about the project on the Vimeo Blog.

4. MUBI Unveils 'Short Films Big Names’ Program - The Cineaste platform and distributor has long had a pretty decent shorts collection and has now unveiled a collection of early shorts from prominent directors.

5. In-Depth with David Lowery on his Christmas Animated Short - Chris O’Falt, who hosts Indiewire’s Filmmaker Toolkit pod and likes to go behind-the-scenes with talents, has published an excellent piece on David Lowery’s new stop-motion animation, An Almost Christmas Story which is now available to watch on Disney+

6. Star Trek Fans Delight Over New Captain Kirk Short - William Shatner reprises his most famous role in this short marking the 30th Anniversary of the film, Star Trek: Generations. Also, to my surprise, I see that S/W alum Carlos Baena (La Noria) directs!

7. Star Wars Fans Delight Over Greenlight of Visions S3 - While much in the Star Wars universe is in upheaval, the animated short film anthologies have been consistent delights, so great to hear that Visions is getting a third volume in 2025. We wrote about Vol. 2 last year.

8. Idris Elba and Chiwijtel Ejiafor Board Animated Short Contender - Normally we don’t cover these sorts of celeb Exec Producer announcements, but what they hey, even I’m a bit starstruck when it comes to Elba, who is a personal fave. The WePresent short The Brown Dog is the film and it just came online today.

9. Netflix, Meta Sued Over “Quid Pro Quo” - Interesting bit of news here. A new lawsuit alleges that Netflix and Meta created a secret agreement to hobble the Facebook Watch product. This is from a few years back, but you might remember Facebook Watch as a linchpin of the ill-fated “pivot-to-video” strategy that proved disastrous to legacy media and news companies. It’ll be interesting to hear further details from this case.

10. Ben Affleck Makes Headlines With Thoughts on AI - This got shared pretty widely, but Affleck surprised people this week with, what was perceived as nuanced and clear-eyed takes, on AI that acknowledged the potential for job loss but were also bullish on the privileged role of human creativity. What do you think about his statements?

💡 Product Updates

✉️ Messaging! - You can now send direct messages to other Shortverse members. Click the message button on anyone’s profile and start the conversation.

We’ve had messaging for a while, but until now there have been restrictions that were only unlocked for Pro members. We think building community for filmmakers is more important now than ever, and want to help filmmakers build even deeper connections. We’re also adding new settings to manage message notifications. Give it a shot! You can start by messaging me.