Why We Create

📅 This Week on Short of the Week

The second episode of Short Films Explained dropped on Monday. After the warm reception to Rob’s episode with Tim Egan, he talks with another of our YouTube channel’s hi-performers, Anne Thorens, director of 100M views short Diagonale.

Tuesday saw the online premiere of Eros V’s anticipated SXSW and Sitges award-winner, Meat Puppet. Eros is a 3-time alum now and while Rob predictably found the narrative to be “a bit bananas” he also discovered it to be “grounded in emotions that make it both delightfully entertaining and compelling.” No wonder Simon Pegg & Nick Frost are attached as Executive Producers for the director’s feature debut.

Wednesday was the debut of the spectacularly titled Pentatarmex Rabitular from Casey Friedman. Rob covered the review for this one too, noting that, “With its eerie and mysterious premise, the film actually builds an emotionally poignant narrative that allows each viewer to project what they want onto it.”

Short of the Week closed out its week on Thursday with Ward Kamel’s acclaimed If I Die in America. A moving and multi-layered family drama, the film’s premise also introduces a ticking clock of tension throughout which ups the drama as its creator exorcises his complicated feelings surrounding the status of immigrants in America in the wake of Trump’s “Muslim ban”.

🔗 10 Things We’re Paying Paying Attention To

1. The Dream Makers contest has some crazy prizes! - Auto company, Cupra, and the Spanish school, ESCAC, partner on a competition judged by film luminaries like J.A. Bayona and Daniel Brühl. THR reports the winner gets a 4-year full-ride scholarship to the school + nearly half a million to make a short film. Time to pull out Duolingo and brush up on your Spanish!

2. Criterion Acquires Buzzy Short Film - God is Good is an incredibly personal and delightfully unclassifiable piece from multi-hyphenate talent Jeremy Pope (Pose) in close collaboration with the choreographer-turned-director C Prinz. I teased the film in the newsletter back in May and can confirm that it is very impressive. Variety has the scoop on the deal.

3. Political short docs from a trio of Oscar-winners - The growing trend of filmmakers producing explicitly political work for candidates, parties, and political action committees is something I find interesting. This latest example is from The Lincoln Project which enlists Marshall Curry, Jessica Yu, and Lucian Read for a series of topical short docs. Here are the links to their shorts, Insulin Princess, It Couldn’t Happen Here, and Continue the Mission.

4. Blumhouse produces three short films using Meta Movie Gen - The Facebook and Instagram parent is working on its generative AI video offerings and is enlisting filmmaker feedback. Blumhouse answered the call with Casey Affleck, Aneesh Chaganty (Searching), and the Spurlock Sisters making shorts with the new tech. Here’s the first one.

5. Runway Unveils “Act-One” Tool - Impressive demos feel like they are dropping weekly now. Animation has been tipped for revolution based on mo-cap and realtime tools but what if you can just skip the mocap?

6. BIFA Longlist Drops - Rob is on the nominating committee for The British Independent Film Awards and they just released their initial cut of films.

7. Deadline for Season 5 of Rising Voices - This initiative from job-search site Indeed and Lena Waithe’s Hillman Grad production company and 271 Films has shown lasting power over 4 seasons and actually produces good films! From the description “The initiative aims to discover, invest in, and share stories created by BIPOC filmmakers & storytellers around the power and meaning of work. This program awards 10 filmmakers up to a $100K production budget to make a short film, which will premiere at a major US film festival.” Deadline is this Sunday, Oct 27th.

8. “How To Distribute Your Short” w/ Directors Notes Founder - Our friend Marbelle shows up on the latest episode of the Short Films, Big Questions podcast with practical advice based on his many years of curating on the web.

9. What to Watch in Theaters - We recommend Exhibiting Forgiveness from the artist Titus Kaphar. The film co-directed the fascinating short Shut Up and Paint, and this first feature was one of Céline’s favorites out of this year’s Sundance.

10. What to Watch at Home - We adore Penny Lane’s idiosyncratic documentary films dating back to The Voyagers which was a Top Ten of Year pick in the early days of Short of the Week. Her latest feature is Confessions of a Good Samaritan and once again finds the filmmaker turning the camera upon herself as she documents her experience donating a kidney to a stranger she’s never met in a “funny and moving personal quest to understand the nature of altruism.” The film hit Netflix this week.