So Proud of You

🔗 10 Things We’re Paying Attention To

1. Pride Shorts Finalists + Winner - Congrats to Cailleah Scott-Grimes, whose film, Between Us, was selected by our jury as the winner of the competition. A tender portrait of a queer-trans couple navigating relationship difficulties against the backdrop of rural Japan, our jury noted that it “deftly balances global queer concerns and cultural specificity.” Thank you to everyone who submitted! Catch up on our coverage by discovering the finalists, reading Rob’s review, and checking out a Q&A with Scott-Grimes.

2. The Hunt for the Next Curry Barker is On - Predictably, executives and studios are looking to find their own version of a “YouTube filmmaker” (or to utilize the trend to score publicity for talents they are already working with). This past week saw two short-to-feature deals announced using this framing, but fortunately, they were two gents we admire—Kevin Cate with his short Open Door and Rod Blackhurst with his short Alone Time. Congrats!

3. Mynette Louie Explains How Indie Hits Pay Out - Obsession and Backrooms are still the talk of the town, and, on the heels of the brouhaha that erupted from Sally Choi’s IG post about her experience as Art Director on Barker’s film, this conversation with Matt Belloni on The Town podcast on who benefits and how from a surprise indie hit is a great and informative supplement.

4. The Former Drug Dealer Whose Shows Make Millions - The broader takeaway of the “YouTuber” phenomenon is an inchoate desire from many for an “alternate path” to success, one that doesn’t run through Hollywood executives. The “creator” community is a primary example, but this sort of rhetoric is huge in AI film circles too. A new article in the WSJ highlights an additional avenue, a “nascent middle ground in the show business economy,” as FAST channels like Tubi and Roku are turning filmmakers working in underexploited niches into successes.

5. Aiming to “Build the A24 of the Creator Economy” - Remember Wesley Wang? The teenage Harvard undergrad filmmaker famously leveraged the YouTube success of his short, nothing, except everything, into a deal with Sony and mentorship from Darren Aronofsky. He’s back, and The Publish Press shared details of his new production company, Wesley Wang Media, which seeks to “incubate viral IP on social platforms to sell to streamers.” His first big effort is the 3min animated MV above, which just won the Oscar-qualifying “Best Animated Short” prize at Tribeca and is off to a strong start on YT (albeit with the benefit of paid media).

6. Danse Macabre Debut Trailer Wows, Sparks Backlash - Perhaps THE film we look forward to the most at Annecy is the latest short from Hisko Hulsing (Junkyard). Hulsing, an Emmy-winner for Undone, debuted a trailer for an experimental 5min short that brings the artist’s trademark oil paintings to life in unprecedented ways. Animation Magazine and Cartoon Brew both wrote about it, but the language on how the production achieves its groundbreaking look was fuzzy. Observers online surfaced an interview with Hulsing that was more straightforward about the process, describing how Stable Diffusion, trained on the artist’s paintings, was used to apply the oil paint look on top of 3D models. This use of AI has some viewers up in arms, and jumped onto Reddit to help quell a nascent backlash. Undoubtedly a work of exceptional “authorship” by Hulsing, the use of AI tools will make Danse Macabre an interesting case in the ongoing negotiation between tech and art.

7. The Lost Art of Pixar Short Films - Little White Lies asks what happened to one of cinema-going’s most charming traditions, the short film before Pixar movies?

8. The Starting XI: A Soccer Shorts Collection - For the World Cup, we put together a fresh playlist of eleven soccer shorts worth watching, including one of our favorites from last award season, and of course, Joy in People, one of my favorites of all time.

9. Remembering David Hockney - One of the totemic art figures of our time passed away this week, and there are two notable shorts-related ways to remember his life, work, and impact. The first is the anthology film A Bigger Picture, which compiled 80 separate short films on the British artist into a feature-length production. The film’s website allows you to watch the individual shorts for free. The second is David Hockney in the Now: In Six Minutes, a 2013 short film by Oscar-nominee Lucy Walker, produced for LACMA’s ART + FILM gala—the same series that gave us the iconic short A Brief History of John Baldessari.

10. What to Watch This Weekend - The common thread of many items in this week’s newsletter has been the desire of artists to create, distribute (and maybe even profit?) outside of a broken system. Tech can be an avenue, but fundamentally, this desire isn’t anything new—that’s what indie film has always been about! So, I’m happy to recommend a film of pure indie elbow grease this week. BURT is from alum Joe Burke, and was made in a week for 7 grand. The story of a 69-year-old musician in L.A. living with Parkinson's who reconnects with an adult son he never knew he had, the scripted film casts real-life singer/songwriter Burt Berger as a version of himself, in a movie that “blurs the line between reality and fiction with disarming authenticity.” Featured on the Popcorn List, with David Gordon Green lending his name as an EP, this true indie is available to buy or rent from Apple or Amazon now.

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