Modern life is pretty divorced from nature. For a city-dweller like myself, I can vividly recount – and treasure – my rare encounters with animals that, unlike our urban neighbors, the pigeons and squirrels, “don’t belong”: the badger who surprised me out of a tree in Berkeley, or the hawk who liked to rest on my fire escape in Queens. Driving up the 5 in California, I once even stopped my truck along the highway to get out and meet a zebra amidst a field of cows.

These moments feel like small ruptures in the routine, flashes of something wilder just beneath the surface. But their magic depends on distance. Spend enough time with these “visitors,” and the wonder has a way of fading. We will turn a lone interloper into a celebrity, but scale the encounter up, make it constant, and the mood shifts closer to something like the uneasy coexistence of Nuisance Bear.

Callie Barlow‘s short documentary, Our Neighbors, the Peacocks, is a portrait of what happens when that distance is non-existent. Set in Arcadia, California, the film follows a suburban community where history and tradition have contrived to place hundreds of wild peafowl in an otherwise nondescript neighborhood bordering Los Angeles. The peacocks provide a majestic, fleeting experience for visitors, but for residents, they are a daily fact of life – one that oscillates between enchantment and exasperation.

“Most alarming, was the cacophony of screeching that can only be described as a yee-awh akin to the yell of a thousand dying cats”

Barlow was first drawn to the neighborhood as a tourist, enticed by the legend of the peacocks, and came away captivated, describing a scene as “…so dizzying that I could not get it out of my mind. There were hundreds of wild peafowl taking over a few neighborhood blocks – they grouped together on lawns, in full feather displays, vying for a chance to mate; peahens darted across the street, dodging cars, looking for the best offering of worms and flowers; peacocks flew into trees by the dozens, and leapt roof to roof. Most alarming, was the cacophony of screeching that can only be described as a yee-awh akin to the yell of a thousand dying cats.”

Barlow returned with a camera, and what follows is less a conventional narrative than a carefully structured mosaic of perspectives. Residents speak with a mix of reverence and frustration – some see the peacocks as a daily miracle, a direct line to the natural world; others are kept awake at night, their roofs damaged, their patience worn thin. Every few years, the conflict spills into civic life, with calls for relocation programs clashing against a vocal contingent determined to protect the birds at all costs.

“You can easily get beyond the noise and roof damage and find a deeper appreciation for the natural world, right in your front yard,” Barlow explaining what the people of Arcadia taught her

Barlow comes to the film after more than a decade producing high-profile documentary work, including the pioneering brand storytelling project, The Avant Garde Diaries, and roles at Future of Film, RYOT, and Nat Geo. That experience is evident in Our Neighbors, the Peacocks, her directing debut. Formally, the film operates in a polished, public-television register that we sometimes look askance at – cleanly shot interviews, tidy thematic organization, a steady rhythm of anecdote and observation. But here, that clarity works to its advantage. Without a singular dramatic hook, the film instead builds momentum through accumulation, toggling between human testimony and the hypnotic, often absurd spectacle of the peafowl themselves. The result is a piece that, while not reaching for formal fireworks, remains consistently engaging; its construction across 20-minutes is tight enough that the material never overstays its welcome.

If there is a limitation to the approach, it is a certain repetitiveness in its coverage, as there are only so many variations on “they’re beautiful but loud” that the film can cycle through. Yet even this speaks to the underlying reality it depicts: a stalemate, a loop, a community perpetually negotiating the same question without resolution. In that sense, the film’s structure mirrors its subject.

Barlow’s allegiances are not hard to discern, but Our Neighbors the Peacocks resists the urge to resolve the tension it so clearly lays out. Instead, it leans into a modest but resonant idea articulated by its director that living alongside these animals might require “putting aside your own discomforts to find a deeper meaning in nature.” It’s not a radical thesis, but within the context of a culture that increasingly experiences nature at a remove, it lands with quiet force.

It’s just another late night for Joaquin, a high school janitor. Unable to find someone to look after him, he roams the halls of the school with his son – until he hears a noise coming from the gym. Sam Cutler-Kreutz and David Cutler-Kreutz (A Lien, Flounder) are back on S/W with their latest short Trapped. Masters at crafting genuine and effective tension, the directing duo once again creates a complex situation, rich with nuance and layers that make it all the more compelling and thought provoking.

“In this film we try to unpack the questions surrounding generational privilege”

“We are the children of teachers, and the complex balance between students, faculty and administrators was a constant dinner table conversation throughout our childhood”, the filmmakers shared when asked about the inspiration behind Trapped. While, on the surface, the film presents an obvious portrait of inequality, the writer/directors infuse the screenplay with so much more depth. “In this film we try to unpack the questions surrounding generational privilege, which feel integral to the story of Americans and the idea of the American dream”, they explained. Through their story they depict a cycle of inequality, cleverly exploring how wealth and privilege can affect and perpetrate certain problematic and selfish behaviors.

While the power dynamic between the characters is clearly established, and we are never in doubt that it will shift, the filmmakers nevertheless sustain an effective, mounting tension through a series of powerful confrontations and interactions. Narratively, the film unfolds with compelling twists and turns that increasingly encourage empathy for the protagonist as the night progresses. The title of the film is powerful in more ways than one, effectively trapping both Joaquin and the audience. Drawing on the tools of genre, the filmmakers deliver a drama that also operates with the pacing and intensity of a thriller.

Javier Molina excels as Joaquin in trapped

DP Gabriel Crawford Connelly (Sirena) and editor Caitlin Carr (who also worked as editor on the directors’ previous short, A Lien) contribute significantly to that tension, enhancing the screenplay and effectively translating Joaquin’s state of mind to the screen. The rhythm of the film, along with its framing, takes us on the wild ride that this night will turn out to be for Joaquin – moving through stress, urgency, fear, anger, and ultimately relief. Some shots are truly striking, especially those in the gym filled with all the traps. And before you ask – no, they were not AI-generated (it was 2023, after all); the filmmakers explain that they used a mix of real traps and custom-printed images on thick paper.

In the lead role, Javier Molina’s performance as Joaquin is remarkably sincere, raw, and layered. He makes what remains unspoken more powerful than his dialogue, letting the importance of each interaction sink in and enabling the audience to grasp the multifaceted forms of disrespect at play. He is caught between his pride, his role as a father, and his job; all of these responsibilities factor in every decision he makes. Molina consistently brings this depth to each frame he appears in, with the close-ups proving particularly compelling, which in turn makes the ending all the more satisfying and lends the film a sense of relief.

As a lover of storytelling, it is sometimes valuable to be reminded of the enduring power of a well-told yarn. For director Jonathan Pickett (Chicken Stories), that reminder came when he met (then) 75-year-old cowboy singer Johnny Bencomo – a man with an 18-string guitar named Gracie, a movie-star quality and the story of a highly unusual gig – the inspiration for his short film, Deep in My Heart is a Song.

Given that Pickett’s two previous short films were documentaries, it was a natural inclination for him to consider capturing Bencomo on screen with a similar approach. However, after hearing the singer recount the story of this unique and memorable performance, Pickett instead proposed adapting it into a scripted work, with Bencomo playing himself.

“After we finished reading it together, I looked up and saw tears in his big eyes”

“He’d never acted before,” Pickett notes of his lead actor and co-writer, adding that he had “never [even] been on a film set.” Nevertheless, after receiving the script by mail, Bencomo – by Pickett’s account – “took a leap,” prompting the filmmaker to travel to Tombstone, Arizona, where the singer resides, just a few days later. “After we finished reading it together, I looked up and saw tears in his big eyes. He said, ‘My friend, what a tear-jerker we’ve got on our hands,’” Pickett recalls.

With his recent short films rooted in nonfiction, Pickett admits he was “excited by the challenge of bringing that skillset to scripted filmmaking,” ultimately finding that the differences in process were not as pronounced as one might expect. His guiding principle? “Working to create conditions under which magic might be able to unfold: train your camera on fascinating people, frame them in beautiful places, and work with talented and committed collaborators.”

Lindsay Burdge stars as a daughter trying to give her dying mother one last taste of Country music

There is a timeless quality to Deep in My Heart is a Song, enhanced by the textured aesthetic of shooting on Super 16mm, which lends the film a dreamlike, almost ethereal atmosphere. Yet, despite this slightly fantastical feel, the short remains grounded in its performances and emotional core. Its central trio – Bencomo, Lindsay Burdge (star of S/W favourite Fill Your Heart with French Fries) and Annalee Jefferies – bringing a warmth and sincerity that anchor the film.

It is ultimately this human element that proves most compelling. The film could easily veer into something sombre or even morbid, yet instead it feels life-affirming – marked by generosity and compassion. At its core, it is a film about people, a point Pickett himself underscores when reflecting on his intentions:

“Having a professional creative career seems to have all these formalized definitions and metrics of success, but the true value and fulfillment come from the moments of ineffable connection that the art facilitates. That’s what makes filmmaking worth it to me, and I’m so thankful to Johnny for teaching me that.”

We’re subscribers to the theory that much of what we lionize as “creativity” in storytelling isn’t about inventing wholly new forms, but about the alchemy of combining familiar elements in unexpected ways. Dustie Carter’s pilot short for a proposed indie series, Heck to Death, is a sharp demonstration of that idea—its pleasures coming less from reinvention than from the novelty of what it chooses to fuse. The spark of its premise—the immediate recognition of what’s being mashed together—lands quickly and persuasively, creating an eagerness to see where the team might take it next.

Heck to Death is, at heart, a love letter to the DIY hardcore music scene. Carter, who once played in a small band, recalls “…nights packed into basements where identity, chaos, and community collided.” That connection gives the film an essential grounding and helps infuse the film with a necessary authenticity.

But the film isn’t interested in documenting the scene with anthropological rigor. Authenticity is abundant, but realism isn’t the goal. Instead, Heck to Death maps a familiar YA zero-to-hero arc onto this setting: a protagonist seeking belonging, an attractive love interest to impress, a rival to overcome. Tonally, it lands somewhere between The O.C. and a shonen sports anime, with the rhythms and emotional beats of both.

That may not sound especially radical, but exploring new subcultures via the safety of narrative familiarity works. Newness often emerges through reframing. Swap surfers for street racers and Point Break becomes The Fast and the Furious; here, the well-worn coming-of-age template is refracted through hardcore’s abrasive, communal energy. The result is a productive tension: the universal anxieties of youth—love, identity, status—colliding with a subculture that codes as aggressive, even dangerous. It’s a juxtaposition the film smartly leans into, and one that promises deeper exploration if the project expands.

Unsurprisingly, the film’s greatest strength is its energy. The climactic performance sequence is where Carter’s connection to the scene comes fully alive. A mix of locked-off compositions and kinetic handheld camerawork pop, creating a sense of manic, barely-controlled chaos, while the decision to cast performers who can actually play does wonders for the sense of immersion in the scene.

The film isn’t without its rough edges. Like its fictional band, Heck to Death is a scrappy, low-budget effort. The opening scene suffers from muddled audio, making it difficult to parse, and the protagonist remains somewhat generic. Performances vary, though Carter shows a strong instinct for casting in key roles, particularly the rival and love interest. Still, pilots operate by a slightly different metric than standalone shorts. The question becomes less about perfection and more about potential: do you want to spend more time in this world? Legitimate quibbles aside, the answer for Heck to Death is “hell yeah!”

The film arrives online today after a healthy festival run, highlighted by a prize at Colorado’s SeriesFest. For those tracking the still-emerging space of independent TV pilots, the festival remains its most vital showcase, even as larger players like Tribeca, SXSW, and Sundance have built out their own parallel tracks. Carter will return to SeriesFest next month with a new project, Octarine, but continues to develop Heck to Death. Here’s hoping that a robust reception online for this pilot short film can help create a groundswell of energy and support for that endeavor. 

There are certain filmmakers who leave an immediate impression the first time you encounter their work. For me, Nienke Deutz is one such director. With a striking aesthetic that combines hand-built miniature sets with 2D animation printed on transparent sheets, Deutz employs a distinctive visual language to tell equally distinctive – yet widely relatable – stories about everyday human experience, particularly the transformations that accompany ageing.

In her earlier film, Bloeistraat 11, Deutz explored the transition of puberty and the ways it tests the bond between two girls. In her follow-up, The Miracle, she shifts her focus to middle age, following a single woman, Irma, on a luxurious holiday where her surroundings serve as a constant reminder of what she perceives herself to be “missing.”

While this situation – being a childless, single, middle-aged woman on holiday – is quite specific, Deutz draws out a broader universality through themes of dislocation, confusion, and loneliness. These emotions emerge from the experience of inhabiting a space in which one feels fundamentally out of place. The resort Irma visits is clearly designed for families or couples, and although this occasionally wears her down, the film ultimately moves toward a message of self-acceptance and compassion.

From a personal perspective, I find this particularly resonant. Despite being in a markedly different position – having been in a long-term relationship for over two decades and being a father of two – the film’s central insight remains accessible. It encourages a kind of attentiveness to one’s own life, an acceptance of what is, rather than a preoccupation with what might have been. There is an almost meditative quality to The Miracle, one that invites reflection and gratitude rather than regret or melancholy. That, to me, is a rare and valuable quality in a film – especially one that is also as visually engaging and thoughtfully crafted as Deutz’s work.

At Short of the Week, our mission has always been to champion emerging filmmakers and spotlight voices that deserve to be seen and heard. With the launch of Pride Shorts, our new global short film competition, we’re creating a dedicated space to celebrate the complexity, creativity, and diversity of LGBTQ+ storytelling.

More than just a showcase of exceptional filmmaking, Pride Shorts is designed to amplify perspectives that challenge, inspire, and reflect the richness of queer experience – past, present, and future. 

For those ready to submit, entries are now open. Read more about the competition below.

Awards & Prizes

Winner

• Short of the Week Feature (2.2m subscribers)
• Free Winners Merch

Finalists/Runners-up (x3)

• Inclusion in Short of the Week’s Pride Month showcase on Shortverse
• Free Finalists Merch

Competition Jury

The winner of our Pride Shorts competition will be selected by a handpicked jury, including a number of filmmakers previously featured on Short of the Week:

• Charlie Tidmas – a BIFA and Grierson-longlisted writer and director whose work in film and television focuses on intersectional masculinities and trans identity – Full Bio / SotW Films
• Carlen May-Mann – a Brooklyn-based writer and director of bold, humanistic horror, drama, and comedy films – Full Bio / SotW Films

Competition Timeline

Pride Shorts will run over a six-week submission period:

• Opens: Tuesday, April 6
• Closes: Thursday, May 21

The winner will be announced by the end of May and be featured on Short of the Week in early June, to coincide with Pride Month.

What we’re looking for

We are seeking short films that explore LGBTQ+ themes, identities, and experiences in all their forms. Above all, we are looking for films that feel authentic and considered – work that showcases a filmmaker with something to say and the ability to get their message across.

There are no restrictions on genre or style – narrative, documentary, animation, experimental, and hybrid works are all welcome. What matters most is a distinct voice and a clear sense of perspective.

Eligibility

• Films must be 40 minutes or less
• Films must be ready to go online in June 2026
• Films can’t already be featured on SotW
• Open to filmmakers from anywhere in the world
• Selected films must be available for online screening if chosen
• All rights secured including music.

SUBMIT YOUR FILM

Industry Partnerships

SotW is also inviting organisations interested in collaborating or sponsoring the competition to get in touch at partnerships@shortoftheweek.com

***

With Pride Shorts, Short of the Week continues its commitment to supporting filmmakers and fostering a more inclusive film community – one where a wider range of stories can be shared, celebrated, and discovered.

Short of the Week is excited to announce a new partnership with the Ouray International Film Festival, with its first-ever official festival award set to be presented at the 2026 edition in Colorado. The award marks the beginning of an exciting partnership between SotW and OIFF, bringing together two organisations with a shared commitment to supporting filmmakers and strengthening the wider industry.

For Short of the Week, the initiative marks a significant step in expanding its presence within the festival landscape, while reinforcing its long-standing mission to connect filmmakers with wider audiences. It also represents a key milestone for the platform, as it’s the first time an official Short of the Week award will be presented at a film festival. Through this collaboration, SotW aims to help bridge the gap between the festival circuit and the online film community – two spaces that often operate separately despite supporting the same creative ecosystem.

Speaking about the collaboration, Short of the Week Managing Editor Rob Munday highlighted the shared values underpinning the partnership:

“The moment I spent time with the festival team at the Ouray Film Sabbatical, it became clear that this was an event driven not by commercial goals or milestones, but by a genuine commitment to supporting and nurturing filmmaking talent.

While Short of the Week has long wanted to partner with a film festival, it had to be one that shared our beliefs – and with OIFF, that synergy finally clicked into place. As a relatively young festival, we’re excited to support its growth while also expanding the reach and visibility of the SotW platform.”

S/W’s Rob Munday (second left) with the 2026 Ouray Film Sabbatical fellows.

The Short of the Week Award will be selected by a member of the SotW team, with Managing Editor Rob Munday attending the festival this year. In addition to receiving an OIFF medal, the winning filmmaker will benefit from a support package designed to extend the life of their film beyond the festival circuit, including a release on Short of the Week.

By combining SotW’s global audience with OIFF’s in-person community-driven festival, the partnership aims to offer filmmakers both immediate recognition and sustained visibility – an increasingly important combination in today’s evolving film landscape. OIFF co-founder Jake Abell underscored this point:

“At OIFF, we know online and in-person curation go hand in hand. It’s not a zero sum game. Just like festivals, Short of the Week does something indispensable for short filmmakers. Together, we believe OIFF and SotW can amplify what our respective platforms can do to support the folks making amazing short films.”

As both organisations look ahead, the collaboration signals a broader interest in fostering deeper connections across the industry, supporting filmmakers not only at the point of exhibition, but throughout their creative journeys. As fellow OIFF co-founder Jared LaCroix explains:

“As a festival, we’ve been looking for ways to continue to support beyond our in-person experience, and now with this partnership with SotW, we  finally feel like we can offer that type of support.”

***

The Ouray International Film Festival will run from June 18th – 21st 2026. Passes are available now, visit their website for more info.

A drummer is confronted with the reality that age is beginning to catch up with him, gradually affecting his ability to play and forcing him to accept the decline of his career. Drawing from personal experience and a deep connection to music, writer/director Dan Silver crafts a narrative that speaks to the universal experience of confronting the passage of time. Sensitive and emotionally resonant, this slice-of-life drama carries a quietly immersive quality.

“Artists so often associate their entire identities with their work, and to lose that due to age, is genuinely heartbreaking”

“Drumming has always been an integral part of my life”, Silver shared when we asked him what inspired the film. Two of his mentors were his grandfather, to whom the film is dedicated, and famous musician Luther Rix. The filmmaker reflects that his own journey of growing up and sharpening his drumming skills mirrored the experience of watching his two mentors growing older, noting that “the physicality of being a drummer certainly took its toll on both of them”. Witnessing that decline, he explains, prompted much introspection about time and how it can affect and restrict a passion. 

By interweaving the themes of age and passion, Silver taps into a complex identity crisis. “Artists so often associate their entire identities with their work, and to lose that due to age, is genuinely heartbreaking”, he notes – an idea that sits at the core of the film. Despite the specificities of the situation, there is an undeniable universality in what the protagonist of A Beat to Rest goes through. With Silver’s lens painting an emotional portrait of this character with subtlety and nuance, drawing us in effortlessly. The authenticity of the writing truly grounds the film and makes it so effective.

Shot on film, it is not surprising that DP Kevin Johnson gives the images a texture that complements the narrative perfectly. It also brings a melancholy and nostalgia to the visual language that enhances the depth of the story. Silver also challenges himself, embracing long takes and giving the audience the room to process events alongside the main character. While the editing – by Silver himself – gives A Beat to Rest having a pace that echoes the main character’s state of mind, echoing the fact that he is slowing down.

Luther Rix – the inspiration behind the narrative – also stars in the film

Given the subject matter, sound and music play a crucial role. Silver composed the music with Alexandra Funes and they never fall into the trap of having the score be too heavy-handed with a reliant on drums. Instead, it is carefully composed to embody the presence of the music in the protagonist’s mind and how his perception of it evolves throughout the film. 

At the centre of the film is a deeply affecting performance from Luther Rix himself. Silver had shared the script with him to get some feedback, and he ultimately took on the lead role. The relevance of the material made up for his lack of experience in front of a camera, as he brings an impressive rawness to both the character and the emotional turmoil he goes through.

A Beat to Rest is having its World Premiere today on Short of the Week and Silver is already working on a new short film titled Her Painted Gaze, while also developing the feature adaptation of his previous short film Benign, which explores living with a mysterious chronic illness while navigating the chaos of the US healthcare system.

Trans films are no longer niche. Looking at our collection of tagged films on Shortverse, we see dozens of works that have been major awards contenders or are streaming on the world’s biggest services. There isn’t a need for any special treatment—these are amazing works that compete on equal terms with their peers in making us laugh, or think, or cry. 

They do serve an important additional function, however, illuminating a population and a way of life that feels very foreign to many, thus fulfilling the spirit of a famous Roger Ebert quote describing cinema as “a machine that generates empathy.” Recent political trends in America and elsewhere have raised concerns that the culture’s recent progress on trans-acceptance will be rolled back, and we know there is real anxiety and fear about this. 

March 31st is “Transgender Day of Visibility,” a relatively recent demarcation, but one that resonates with values we hold at Short of the Week around showcasing perspectives outside of the ordinary. Considering the larger context, it feels more urgent than ever. We’re happy to mark the occasion with this collection of short films our curatorial team has put together, a mix of recent films and old favorites. 

🏳️‍⚧️ Celebrating International Transgender Day of Visibility

Click on Image to view the Collection on Shortverse.

Muscogee artist Dana Tiger shares her life story – the ups and downs, her career, her family and their iconic apparel company – with exceptional honesty and inspiring resilience. In Tiger, director Loren Waters paints an incredibly compelling portrait of this remarkable artist, poignantly immersing us in Dana’s perspective of the world around her, and revealing how art has served as a healing practice in her family.

“The biggest inspiration behind Tiger was Dana Tiger herself”, Waters candidly confessed. While that is true for most artist portrait documentaries, Waters explained that the film was “really rooted in speaking to her character and really trying to create a painterly image with her, but also a portrait”. Dana’s voice feels present throughout all the directorial choices in the film. From her unwavering positivity to the artistic legacy of her family, the film feels incredibly personal and invites the audience into her world with a rare sense of intimacy.

“This film is a tribute to Dana’s life and her family’s incredible journey”

Waters gives Dana a voice, allowing her to share her own story in her own words. Her resilience and energy is infused in the visuals and pacing of the film, with DP Robert L. Hunter framing her in a way that makes Tiger feel like a homage to her and her work. This approach also creates a space for Dana to share her challenges and successes with agency, making the film all the more empowering. Eva Dubovoy’s editing and Amanda Moy’s sound design further enhance the empowering feeling of the film, adding to a rhythm that creates an effective emotional journey. 

“This film is a tribute to Dana’s life and her family’s incredible journey. It seeks to honor not only their legacy of artistic innovation but also their resilience in the face of adversity”, Waters shared. Despite the grief and adversity captured, Tiger also show the hope radiating from Dana in every second of the short. Her presence is not only inspiring but drives the film in a deeply engaging and captivating way. Waters crafts a work that feels celebratory while carrying an undeniable emotional depth that takes the audience by surprise and makes the watching experience so powerful.

After its World Premiere at the 2025 edition of Sundance, Tiger made its way around the festival circuit with notable stops at SXSW, deadCenter, Seattle, Aspen and the Palm Springs ShortFest. It also picked up multiple awards along the way, and was eligible for consideration at the 2026 Oscars. Waters is currently working on a short narrative film called A Map to the Next World.

Grief is a strange thing. It can lie dormant for years, settling beneath the surface, only to rise again when you least expect it. A sound, a place, a smell – and suddenly it spills over, pulling you back into something you thought you had long since made peace with. We’re told that time softens the sharp edges of heartache, that memories become easier to carry, but more often than not they simply shift and distort, changing shape as they move through us. And it’s within that fluid, unpredictable space that Telsche finds its flow.

Directed by Sophie Colfer and Ala Nunu (Ahead), Telsche is a conceptual short that conveys the strange, lingering ache of loss and nostalgia in a way that hits close to home, even though its storytelling is abstract rather than literal. In just eight-minutes it makes this weight of memory feel tangible without spelling it out, and the animation is a thing of beauty: shapes and colours change and shimmer, sometimes solid, sometimes fluid, so that a single blue can feel like water one moment and a yawning void the next. Every design choice feels carefully considered, and everything comes together to make the story feel both personal and universal. It’s easy to see why this beautifully rendered meditation on grief has already made waves at Annecy, Anima and more.

“We felt that the clean 2D digital style worked best to emphasise the bleak contrasts of this world” – Colfer & Nunu discussing their aesthetic

Telsche follows a young girl chasing a memory of her mother. The story is minimal and dreamlike, loosely charting her journey as she notices a stone carved with her mother’s face at home, rushes outside to the salt flats, and sees her vanish into a blue void. Determined to follow, she dives into dark, twisting tunnels underground, uncovering a hidden world that brings her closer to a reunion. 

The story is actually rooted in Colfer’s own memories. After moving back to Hong Kong, where she was born and grew up, she was reunited with the vast sea of her youth and the memories of her family, especially her mother, a Japanese diver, and her father, an English sailor. “One of her earliest memories with her mother was of watching pearl divers in Japan”, the directors shared with S/W.“They would dip and descend in their white uniforms, without tanks of air, and collect pearls from the depths. These concepts of memory and forgetting therefore permeate the entire film, reflected visually in the contrast between light and dark and in the choice of still, wide shots, wherein the subjects are barely visible, on the verge of being seen but as of yet unremembered.” 

But the film doesn’t rely on distance alone. It counterbalances these expansive compositions with close-ups that pull us into Telsche’s interior world, creating a push and pull between detachment and intimacy. While the wide shots place her within an overwhelming expanse, emphasising her smallness and isolation, the tighter framing invites us to linger with her, to feel the weight of what she carries. 

“Our collaboration took (and continues to take) place across a distance spanning thousands of kilometres and an eight-hour time difference” – the directorial duo discuss working together

Pulling back, beyond these compositional choices, there’s something to be said about the sheer level of craft on display here. What makes Telsche so striking is just how much care and precision sits behind its apparent simplicity. This is anything but effortless. Every scene carries the weight of countless hours of animating frame by frame, of trial and error and a good helping of raw talent, and you can feel it in the way the animation moves and breathes. The limited colour palette, rather than restricting the film, does the opposite. It forces a kind of creative discipline that pays off, pushing the animators to find depth, contrast and atmosphere in every scene. Shapes and colours become more than stylistic choices too – they act as storytelling tools in their own right, continually reshaping the space around the character. Paired with the eerie, echoing sound design, which seems to stretch and bend the space even further, the result is deeply immersive. It’s a film that understands exactly how to use its tools, and never wastes a single one.

And when it ends, Telsche doesn’t so much conclude as drift – leaving behind an impression rather than an answer. Like grief, it resists being pinned down, instead settling somewhere deeper, where feeling outlasts understanding.

As children, our parents can feel like the centre of our world – figures of stability and/or authority who are easily placed on a pedestal. Inevitably, however, there comes a moment when that perception begins to shift, and we start to recognise them as flawed, complex individuals, no less uncertain than we are. It is this quiet but profound transition that Dovydas Drakšas captures with sensitivity and restraint in his London Film School short, Praeis (It’ll Pass) – a film that had its World Premiere in the La Cinef section of Cannes in 2025.

A film focused on perception – how we see ourselves, how we interpret others, and how we are, in turn, perceived – Praeis unfolds with a contemplative rhythm, anchored by two finely judged performances. Ieva Kaniušaitė plays Ada, a daughter beginning to reassess both her father and her place in the world, while Šarūnas Puidokas brings a quiet vulnerability to the role of her father. At 27-minutes long, the film sits at the longer end of the short film spectrum, yet its duration feels justified, largely due to the emotional authenticity these performances sustain throughout.

Šarūnas Puidokas stars as a cigarette smuggler and father at a crossroads in his life.

This extended runtime affords the film the space to observe rather than follow its character, allowing the audience to gradually become immersed in their emotional terrain. While strained parent–child relationships are a familiar narrative framework, Drakšas approaches the material with a notable degree of empathy and nuance. Rather than privileging one perspective over the other, he presents both father and daughter as fully realized individuals, each navigating their own limitations, expectations, and emotional blind spots. The result is a relationship that feels lived-in and recognizably human, avoiding the reductive tendencies that often accompany such stories.

From a programming perspective, articulating precisely what distinguishes a film can sometimes prove elusive. While Praeis may not immediately announce itself through high-concept storytelling or formal experimentation, there is a quiet assurance in Drakšas’ direction that suggests a filmmaker with a clear and confident voice. This quality – subtle, but pervasive – manifests in the film’s pacing, its performances, and its willingness to sit with emotional ambiguity. It is, perhaps, less about what the film does, and more about how assuredly it does it.

Margarethe 89 was a bolt out of the blue during the 2023 festival season. Its mature spy-thriller plot line and grounded, historical realism felt like a novel pairing for a stylish, adult-focused animation, making the film an instant splash at spots like Director’s Fortnight, Annecy, and Curtas Vila do Conde. Animation is often pigeon-holed as a medium for the fantastic—a way to represent the unreal via strange worlds and creatures or represent interiority through dreams and visions, but Margarethe 89 instead utilizes the control inherent in animation to recreate for viewers the stifling surveillance state of the East German Stasi, to wonderfully paranoid and claustrophobic effect.

Directed by Lucas Malbrun, based on a script co-written with his frequent collaborator, Marie Larrivé, the filmmaker was born in Munich in 1990, and grew up in a reunited Germany where “strange revelations about this vanished country were omnipresent.” Inspired by the regime’s tactic of “Zersetzung” or “dissolution,” he sought to transpose the story of Gretchen from Goethe’s Faust to a new context. In an interview with Vimeo Staff Picks for the short’s online premiere, he notes that, “Gretchen’s love for Faust is based on a misunderstanding: he comes across as a young and righteous man, but is in fact an old man in pact with the devil…exploring the figure of the manipulative male, himself under the influence of third party…was compelling to me.”

Heinrich is that manipulative male, but Malbrun sees him as a victim of the regime, too. The film intriguingly begins on a surreal note with a parade where, instead of figures from pop culture – Snoopy, or Mickey, and the like – Heinrich witnesses a giant floating bust of Karl Marx. Malbrun is emphasizing the totalizing nature of ideology and how indoctrination begins very young. The film’s visual look reinforces this concept of arrested development, deploying bright colors in the images, added to the film by the use of normal, school-standard felt-tip pens.

Revolution is currently in the air in our media, as the best TV show of recent memory served as an epic chronicle of a nascent resistance movement, while the recently crowned Best Picture winner is about what we build once revolutionary fires burn out. The tragedy of Margarethe 89 is a nice complement to this moment, and shows how animation can be a strength within mainstream genres and storytelling modes. I’ve often noted that period pieces, despite their popularity in features and television, are tough for short films to execute. Margarethe 89, which evokes the popular German series Deutschland 83 via its title, feeds audience appetites for this sort of mainstream genre, with the level of sophistication and style they are accustomed to. It’s another big swing for the French production company, Eddy, which, via pieces like this, Larrivé and Malbrun’s prior film Noir-Soleil, or 2018 S/W selection, Le Mans 1955, is leading the way in showing how animation can tackle genres associated with live-action in sober, but artistically progressive fashion.

In March 2020, during the first month of COVID-19 lockdowns, Greece’s SOS Line 15900 – a national service supporting those affected by gender-based violence – recorded 325 calls, a 370% increase from the 69 calls received in the same month the previous year. Confronted by this sharp rise in violence in her home country, Greek writer-director Markela Kontaratou turned to filmmaking as a means of processing and expressing her response. The result is Scorched Earth, a London Film School graduation project that went on to screen at the Locarno Film Festival.

“The film was conceived as a Neo-Noir/Giallo that subverts the trope of a male voyeur”

Drawing on the visual and tonal traditions of Neo-Noir and Giallo, Scorched Earth is set in a sun-drenched Greek seaside town. It follows Stela, who returns home to focus on her studies, only to find herself increasingly disturbed by the presence of her abusive neighbour. As his violence towards his partner escalates, Stela becomes entangled in a possible crime, prompting her to take action seek out the truth.

Kontaratou’s intention with Scorched Earth is not only to foreground the ongoing realities of gender-based violence, but also to interrogate the ways in which such incidents are often mediated and sensationalised. As she suggests, the film critiques how violence is transformed into a “serialized, grotesque sensation” within media culture. To explore this, she turns to genre, incorporating elements of horror and thriller in order to “create a world that reflects the way in which femininities are treated in real life and in film.”

“Artificial was also our choice of purple moonlight, creating a surreal, mysterious atmosphere, connecting to the character of Vicky who also wears purple”, director Kontaratou discussing the production

With regards to production, the film adopts a distinctive aesthetic. Shot on 16mm, with a pronounced purple hue in its night sequences, Scorched Earth embraces a stylised visual language that introduces a layer of artificiality to an otherwise grounded subject. For Kontaratou, this is a deliberate strategy: “I tried to portray the female experience of the male gaze by putting the audience in the place of being conscious that they are watching something constructed.” Techniques such as “dirty” point-of-view shots, zooms, and expressive camera movements work to unsettle the viewer, continually suggesting the presence of something hidden within the frame.

The result is a deliberately voyeuristic experience, in which both the protagonist and the audience occupy a position of uneasy spectatorship. Kontaratou acknowledges that the film resists narrative closure, offering more questions than answers. As she explains, the intention is for viewers to recognise that these narrative decisions were “plot points rather than plot holes,” inviting reflection rather than resolution. The core takeaway from Scorched Earth is a persistent and troubling question: “why we are all so often silent onlookers when faced with situations of gendered violence?”

There is something about the locker – or changing – room that consistently proves fertile ground for storytelling. Perhaps it is a space defined by vulnerability, both physical and psychological, where social dynamics are heightened and identities are negotiated. In Ce qui appartient à César (English title: Changing Rooms), the César-nominated short by Violette Gitton, this environment becomes both a site where toxic masculinity festers and a space in which its young protagonist begins to process his emotions and mature.

Changing Rooms immediately immerses the viewer in its world, opening within the charged atmosphere of a fencing class. Our first clear encounter with 12-year-old César, the film’s lead character, sees him strutting towards the camera wearing only trousers and a chest protector designed for female fencers. As one of the boys is encouraged to “strip off,” César introduces the so-called “dick-o-meter,” a ruler used to measure the body part referenced in the device’s name, signalling early on the film’s engagement with performative masculinity and peer pressure.

Billie Blain (L) and Marius Plard stars as siblings in Changing Rooms

While this burgeoning toxic masculinity dominates the film’s opening moments and helps establish César’s social environment, Gitton soon shifts tone. A more vulnerable version of the boy is soon revealed as he addresses a video camera, marking a pivotal transition. From this point – particularly following the disclosure of his sister’s assault – the film develops into a layered exploration of adolescence, responsibility, and emotional confusion.

Gitton has stated that she hoped the film would interrogate “the way boys are confronted with violence and expectations about masculinity,” and this intention is clearly reflected in her narrative approach. By presenting the story through César’s perspective, she avoids depicting the assault itself, instead focusing on the internal turmoil of a young boy grappling with how to respond. This choice not only lends the film a distinctive perspective but arguably results in a more resonant and considered portrayal than a more direct representation might have achieved.

“I could see that something intense and confusing was happening inside him”

As is often the case with stories of this nature, the film is, unfortunately, rooted in personal experience. “I was sexually assaulted when I was 14, and I was struck by the reaction of my younger brother,” Gitton explains. “I could see that something intense and confusing was happening inside him.” Reflecting on later conversations, she notes that he described it as “strange” to grow up as a boy while also recognising that “men (like he was) could also represent a threat.”

Despite this traumatic event behind the film’s conception, Changing Rooms ultimately adopts a constructive and forward-looking perspective. Gitton emphasises that her intention was not to recreate the trauma itself, but to tell a story “that could feel useful for today’s younger generations,” adding that she wanted to “create something that young people could recognize themselves in, without simplifying their emotions or their contradictions.” An intention that’s especially significant in the context of adolescence, offering a nuanced reflection on the complex and often conflicting emotions young people must navigate as they grow.

Stay with me, and by extension, with Sister!, a short film that I’ve come to adore, but which I recognize could be a hard sell for loyal S/W viewers. Not because of its lack of quality, of course, but because its sensibility is different in many ways from our typical featured short.

The story of a woman who pops in unexpectedly on her unsuspecting Brooklyn-based “sibling” (their moms supposedly share a sperm donor), Sister! is a fun, transgressive, and over-the-top queer comedy written by its stars, up-and-coming talents Julia Wendt and Tessa Belle, and is an unapologetic showcase for the duo’s comedic stylings.

So far so good, but, and perhaps I am projecting here, I was fairly resistant to the film early in my initial viewing. Partly, I recognize we’re chauvinistic towards directors, and this is, resolutely, a writer/performer film. We’ve sat through enough LA actor-driven web series to be trepidatious of this. Directed by John Onieal, notable as the creator of Grindr’s first scripted show, his direction is quite deft, but, between the film’s limited locations and the rapid pace of its joke delivery, the short presents more like a single-camera sitcom than an auteurist work. Onieal’s contributions are necessary but subtle, managing the reservoir of written comedy in a collaborative process that “involved a lot of riffing with each other, comedians, and department heads so to ensure that what we were making resonated,” and making sure the camera platformed the strengths of his stars.

Fortunately, Wendt and Belle deliver star turns. Part of the roughness of the early going is that Wendt is left to establish the initial tone by playing off of a deadpan Asha Ward, but the transfemme Wendt’s line delivery is very affected and can come off as stilted. However, like a stray note brought into harmony, Belle’s entrance into the film soon snaps the dynamic into place, and their chemistry is dynamic.

It’s also relentless. The pair’s comedy style, which is progressive, but playfully mocks the excesses and contradictions of Gen-Z wokeness in subject, is basically all-joke, all-the-time in practice. It’s frankly remarkable—the film has almost no standard exposition, no calm, sincere moments, it’s pretty much 13-minutes straight of jokes.

Naturally, your mileage may vary on the effectiveness of these—comedy is hard! But a ton of them land for me, and the great thing about a high-joke tempo is that if one falls flat, another is right on its heels. The production showed up to the shoot with a huge list of ALT jokes and planned for extensive space to improvise on set, so the team had a huge surplus of material in the edit to pick what was hitting the best, and it shows.

Even if the effectiveness of the comedy is questionable for you, I argue that it is deserving of admiration. Comedy is criminally underrepresented in shorts, and especially this sort of comedy, which is not ironic, surreal, or absurdist, but focused on jokes. Wendt and Belle blasting jokes to set up a joke which delivers a joke punchline is the closest I’ve seen to a short reaching something like classic 30 Rock, which I perceive as a gold standard. That the film also has heart is almost a miracle. In the midst of their bludgeoning, escalatingly hysterical final act, the film’s producer, Jeremy Truong, challenged the production to “find moments of emotional truth,” and while the “sisters’” ultimate catharsis and bonding is telegraphed, it genuinely lands.

A feature at last year’s Tribeca Festival, we’re pleased to present the online premiere of Sister! Take advantage of this opportunity to watch a very funny short, which we expect to be a launchpad for this impressive team, especially Wendt and Belle. 

To tell an empathetic story with characters that barely move sounds nearly impossible, right? Yet five students manage to do exactly that in Forever, building an entire emotional and comedic world around a group of garden gnomes whose rigid ceramic faces and bodies somehow carry more determination, will, pride, and stubborn heroism than many human protagonists.

Directed by Théo Djekou, Pierre Ferrari, Cyrine Jouini, Pauline Philippart and Anissa Terrier from École des Nouvelles Images, this six-minute short transforms the quiet backyard life of kitschy statuettes into a full-blown cinematic adventure. Here, the simple act of losing golf balls over a garden fence becomes an existential threat to a fragile society that refuses to accept its destiny as merely decorative. The premise is wonderfully absurd but treated with complete sincerity, as if the fate of these small figures truly hinged on defending their territory against an invisible, unreachable enemy.

With each gnome defined through posture, staging, and timing, their typically static forms become a surprisingly expressive cast. Their rigidity is both the joke and the charm, as their quest for revenge gradually evolves into something closer to a miniature epic. What unfolds is essentially a silent comedy driven by determination and an abundance of cultural references, where the language of Hollywood blockbusters is affectionately exaggerated and distilled into compact visual sketches – without ever feeling obvious or overplayed.

Dramatic framing, heightened tension, excellent sound design, and heroic poses elevate the gnomes’ struggle into something that feels both ridiculous and oddly sincere: a parody rooted in affection, with a singular goal – to defeat their ominous enemy. This antagonist remains unseen; we witness only the consequences of their actions. The true culprits – the humans behind it all, whose careless golfing disrupts the gnomes’ world – remain just out of sight.

The gnomes prepare for confrontation, organizing themselves as if facing an invading army. And yet, the only visible adversary they encounter is something far less sinister: a dog wandering through the battlefield, blissfully unaware of the war unfolding beneath its paws. It’s a small but perfect choice. The dog is neither evil nor malicious – it’s simply behaving like a dog – and by leaving it exactly as it is, the film preserves the innocence of its world while gently reminding us that the epic struggles we imagine are often invisible to everyone else.

Forever is a playful tribute to the blockbusters of our youth and a testament to the power of animation. In a world obsessed with constant motion, these characters stand victorious without shifting a muscle, telling – through the humblest of figures – a story about courage, rivalry, and heroic determination. It’s absurd, yet strikingly precise, proving that with enough imagination, even the quietest objects in a garden can carry the weight of an epic.

Conversations within the film industry frequently invoke the language of community and ecosystem. These terms suggest a dynamic network of artists, institutions, and intermediaries working in dialogue with one another. Yet when examined more closely, the reality can feel considerably more fragmented. In our experience as online programmers, the short-film landscape in which we work often operates in distinct silos. Festivals provide spaces where filmmakers meet other filmmakers, exchange ideas, and build relationships. But what of the journalists, distributors, and programmers who also shape the industry? Outside of the occasional panel discussion, these figures can feel noticeably less present – or at least less accessible – within the same spaces.

If such divisions exist, the question becomes: who might address them? What would it look like if these different roles within the industry were brought into closer and more sustained dialogue? And what might that mean for the broader health of the film ecosystem?

One organisation attempting to explore these questions is the Ouray International Film Festival. Building on the intimate, community-focused ethos that has come to define the festival, its organisers have launched the Ouray Film Sabbatical – an initiative designed to bring together filmmakers, critics, programmers, and other industry participants in a shared space of reflection and exchange. Conceived as an extension of the festival’s broader values, the sabbatical seeks to foster a slower, more deliberate environment for conversation: one in which creative practice, critical thought, and professional development can intersect.

The first edition of the sabbatical took place in the mountain town of Ouray in early March 2026. Speaking with the organisers, facilitators, and fellows who participated, it becomes clear that the initiative is motivated by a broader concern about the structural pressures currently shaping the film industry – and by a desire to imagine alternative ways of relating to both the work and the people who make it.

Filmmakers, film writers and film programmers gathered in the town of Ouray, for the first ever Ouray Film Sabbatical.

Rethinking Roles Within the Film Ecosystem

A central idea behind the sabbatical is the belief that the industry often undervalues the interconnected nature of its different roles. Jake Abell, co-founder of the Ouray International Film Festival and one of the programme’s hosts, argues that the separation between creative and critical labour is frequently taken for granted. “We mistakenly think that’s inevitable,” he explains. For Abell and the sabbatical team, an important starting point was the recognition that the various participants who shape the life of a film – not only those who make it, but also those who write about, programme, and circulate it – contribute meaningfully to the cultural conversation surrounding cinema.

This perspective was echoed by fellow sabbatical host Ben Wiessner – a producer we’ve featured regularly on Short of the Week and co-creator of the Short to Feature lab with Jim Cummings – who describes early conversations about how the initiative might encourage participants to begin “having one conversation about the ecosystem with multiple different stakeholders.” In other words, the goal was not simply to gather people from different professional backgrounds, but to place them in a setting where those distinctions could temporarily soften, allowing participants to engage with one another more openly.

“What are we good at? What do we not see? What are we hearing people need?”

For the organisers behind the Sabbatical, it was clear from the outset that they wanted to develop something within the educational sphere that might help reimagine what a filmmaking community could look like. However, the project also emerged from a broader reflection on what contemporary filmmakers and industry workers appear to need. As Wiessner puts it, the organisers asked themselves a series of guiding questions: “What are we good at? What do we not see? What are we hearing people need?” These questions ultimately shaped the ethos of the sabbatical.

Among the inspirations behind the initiative were filmmaking duo the Daniels, long associated with a collaborative ethos that emphasises mutual support within creative communities. Reflecting on their influence, Wiessner notes that their example helped crystallise a key principle for the programme: that those who gain experience within the industry have a responsibility to “send the ladder back down” to others coming up behind them.

The organisers were also conscious of the wider social and political context in which cultural work now takes place. Facilitator Dr. Sabeen Ahmed emphasises that one of the sabbatical’s aims was to create an environment where participants felt “safe, cared for, and genuinely seen – not simply as filmmakers or industry members, but as creatives and storytellers navigating a ruthlessly atomized, brutally capitalist, and deeply alienating world.” Within such a context, Ahmed suggests, the opportunity to encounter others with “curiosity, generosity, and a sense of shared purpose,” can itself become a meaningful intervention.

Hosts, facilitators & fellows gather at the table of the sabbatical house in Ouray. Photo by festival co-founder and sabbatical host Jared LaCroix

Rest as a Creative Resource

Underlying the initiative is a simple but often overlooked premise: that film professionals require not only opportunity and visibility, but also community, support, and rest in order to sustain meaningful creative work. Of these three principles, it was the final one – rest – that the organisers ultimately felt was most urgently needed.

“Nobody’s talking about rest, apart from as a cry for help,” Abell observes. In response, the sabbatical deliberately resists the productivity-driven logic that often governs the film industry. Rather than prioritising measurable output or project development, the programme encourages participants to step away from the constant momentum of festival submissions, networking obligations, and production timelines.

Filmmaker and attendee Hannah Schierbeek echoes this sentiment, noting that “rest and reflection are essential for artists.” While sabbatical fellow and S/W alum Kayla Abuda Galang praised the initiative for providing “moments to step back, listen, laugh, and simply be.” She added that the space carried a lot of “heart and humanity”- qualities that can easily be lost amid “the grind and endless strategic planning required to get your stuff made.”

In practice, this philosophy shapes the rhythm of the sabbatical itself. Time in Ouray is structured around slower activities: visiting the local hot springs, speaking with students at the town’s school, walking through the surrounding landscape, or engaging in small creative exercises.

“Permission to make mistakes and not take a creative task too seriously helps you get out of your head”

The latter was something facilitator and filmmaker Anna Baumgarten felt particularly strongly about, seeing tactile crafts as an important reminder of “how important it is to play.” In an industry so often governed by deadlines and pressure, Baumgarten suggests that the freedom to “not take a creative task too seriously helps you get out of your head.” As she notes, film projects can take years to complete, so being able to create something in a few hours – and experience a sense of creative accomplishment – can be genuinely rejuvenating.

In many ways, the most productive moments of the sabbatical occur precisely when productivity is not the primary goal. Conversations about work and the state of the industry often emerge organically – during a walk through the mountains or while sitting together making bead lizards in the sabbatical house. These low-pressure environments allow participants to articulate doubts, uncertainties, and aspirations that can be difficult to voice in more professional contexts, making these conversations not only possible, but productive.

Hosts, facilitators & fellows pose in front of the ‘Switzerland of America’ lookout sign in Ouray. Photo by festival co-founder and sabbatical host Jared LaCroix

A Different Kind of Industry Gathering

Most professional gatherings in the film world are oriented toward a specific objective – pitching a project, developing a feature, or networking for career advancement. The Ouray Film Sabbatical, however, takes a different approach. Rather than centring on productivity, it provides both physical and mental space to reflect and recharge between projects. The hope behind this alternative model is twofold: to help prevent burnout and to foster open, honest conversations about the industry – how it can thrive, and how we can take care of the people who make it run.

Filmmaker Sam Osborn, who attended the programme with his creative partner Alejandra Vasquez, notes that the sabbatical differs significantly from typical industry environments. “We didn’t each go into the sabbatical with a film to workshop,” he explains. In contrast to the atmosphere on set or at festivals – where professionals often feel pressure to project competence and confidence – the residential format allowed participants to step away from what he describes as the “self-mythologizing” that can accompany creative careers.

Within this setting, Osborn says participants could “set aside those worries and feel free to ask dumb questions, talk about day jobs, or even just spend an entire day not talking about movies at all.” For him, some of the most meaningful conversations that took place were ones he had not previously allowed himself to have.

It’s this rarity of a retreat-based model that makes the Ouray Film Sabbatical stand out. Facilitator Baumgarten points out that spaces like this are few and far between – but precisely because of that, they are vital. She highlights the “expansive conversations and creative problem-solving” that such an environment provokes, describing them as essential not only for the attendees themselves but for the future of the film industry and the “dynamic conversations” surrounding it.

“Spaces to break down the silos between different practitioners in the industry must urgently continue to be nurtured!”

Another key element of the sabbatical is its multidisciplinary approach. Bringing together professionals from across the industry in one space for four days encourages participants to reconsider the boundaries between their respective roles. Sabbatical fellow Elizabeth Rao notes that these distinctions are often more artificial than they appear, and that spaces which “break down the silos” of the industry must “urgently continue to be nurtured”.

For many of the sabbatical’s first fellows, the sense of community that emerges from this format is particularly significant. Filmmaker Hannah Schierbeek describes the experience as a reminder that moments of uncertainty within creative careers – which can often “feel isolating” – are widely shared, prompting an important reflection: “we are not alone”.

The hosts & facilitators of the Ouray Film Sabbatical gather for a picture in the snowy landscapes surrounding town. Photo by Kayla Abuda Galang

Small Experiments, Larger Possibilities

Following a series of crises in recent years, the film industry continues to exist in a state of flux, with debates about how to sustain and reshape it showing little sign of slowing. Many of the proposed solutions emphasise the need for change at every level of the ecosystem, which is precisely why initiatives like the Ouray Film Sabbatical feel increasingly significant. The filmmakers and practitioners who take part are not yet at the peak of their careers, and so the conversations and values developed in spaces like this have the potential to travel with them – informing their work and, in time, being passed on to others throughout their professional lives. Of course, Ouray is a small town and the sabbatical operates with limited resources, which naturally places limits on what it can achieve on its own.

For that reason, the organisers hope the model itself might prove influential. Abell openly describes the decision to launch the initiative as a “wager”, acknowledging the risks involved. At the same time, he believes that other “festivals, organisations, labs, [and] similar organisations” could adopt a comparable approach – bringing people together across professional boundaries as a way to foster conversation and help move the industry in a healthier direction. Abell also remains optimistic about the sabbatical’s own future, expressing excitement about welcoming more industry professionals to Ouray while also looking to “sustain the relationships built over this initial gathering”.

“More opportunities is not something solved by just money”

For fellow organiser Wiessner, the initiative also reflects a broader belief that expanding opportunities in the film industry is not simply a matter of funding. As he puts it, “more opportunities is not something solved by just money.” Instead, Wiessner argues that it is possible to “create a sense of abundance from very little” – provided that those who have already progressed within the industry recognise a responsibility to support those coming up behind them. His suggestion is to “be demanding” of those who have climbed the ladder, ensuring they actively help foster the next generation of filmmakers. It is a perspective that resonates strongly with us at Short of the Week, where we not only acknowledge our alumni as part of our continued success, but credit them with making the platform possible in the first place.

Ultimately, spaces like the Ouray Film Sabbatical matter because they offer something many of us risk losing when we become absorbed in our work: a reminder of the importance of people. Spending time with others who care deeply about filmmaking – and who are willing to speak honestly about the challenges of sustaining that passion – can itself be restorative. If the film industry often describes itself as an ecosystem, initiatives like this suggest that maintaining its health may require more than simply producing new work. It may also require cultivating the conditions in which the people behind that work can connect, reflect, and occasionally pause long enough to rediscover why they fell in love with filmmaking in the first place.

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Submissions for the 2027 Ouray Film Sabbatical will open later in 2026, if you want to submit your film to the Ouray International Film Festival you have until March 21st.

Whether you believe in aliens or not, the idea of communicating with another species remains a compelling prospect for many. For storytellers in particular, narratives about alien contact continue to hold enduring appeal for a range of reasons – whether as a way to explore humanity’s place in the universe or as a mirror reflecting contemporary society. The challenge, as always with such well-trodden territory, is finding a way to tell the story without it feeling stale or derivative. It’s a challenge taken on by filmmaker Adebukola Bodunrin, whose background in experimental animation helped shape her SXSW short We Are Not Alone.

“We Are Not Alone is a lo-fi sci-fi parable about connection and expectation, but underneath it’s about the false promise of the American Dream”

“Post-Covid, I found myself thinking about isolation and the quiet humiliation of feeling left behind”, Bodunrin reveals as we discuss why she wanted to bring Ezra Claytan Daniels’ short comic (of the same name) to the screen. Adapting that original story into what the director describes as a “lo-fi sci-fi parable about connection and expectation”, We Are Not Alone stands out as one of the more original pieces of recent science-fiction filmmaking we’ve encountered, taking a somewhat familiar premise and transforming it into something unexpected and memorable.

That sense of distinctiveness is largely rooted in Bodunrin’s aesthetic approach. Shooting on Kodak Ektachrome 16mm, the filmmaker incorporated the short’s animated elements directly onto the film stock – painting, scratching, printing, and etching onto its surface. Yet this visual strategy is far from a gimmick; it serves a clear expressive purpose. The 16mm format lends the film a timeless quality, reinforcing the mysterious tone of the narrative (the alien presence is never explained). Meanwhile, the animation gives that presence a tangible dimension, almost as if the extraterrestrials are communicating through the screen itself. As Bodunrin explains:

“I wasn’t interested in abandoning my animation practice. I wanted to contaminate the live-action world with it. The goal was to create a hybrid form where the handmade marks felt like an emotional undercurrent, almost like the characters’ inner language bleeding onto the film itself . . . I was interested in creating a parallel visual language, something like hieroglyphics running beside the narrative. The marks aren’t decorative. They function as a second voice, one that feels ancient, mechanical, and slightly alien.”

“I wanted to challenge myself to direct a live-action narrative while still working through an analog, tactile process. I wasn’t interested in abandoning my animation practice,” Bodunrin discussing her production

As a science-fiction fan, I was especially taken with Bodunrin’s spin on the first-contact narrative. The film’s use of language – both the imagined language of the aliens and the visual language of cinema itself – felt inventive, playful, and genuinely engaging. In that sense, We Are Not Alone brought to mind Arrival by Denis Villeneuve. The two films are, of course, very (VERY) different in scale and approach, but honestly I can’t think of higher praise to give this short or its director.

Looking ahead, Bodunrin has more exciting projects ahead. Next on the horizon is a new experimental short that will continue her exploration of “direct intervention on film as both image and object,” pushing the technique toward “more intricate, layered mark-making and abstraction”. She’s also developing another short alongside writer Ezra Claytan Daniels, which the filmmakers describe as focusing on “the psychology and performance of online email scams.” If We Are Not Alone is any indication of what to expect, both projects are definitely ones to keep on the radar.

It was the Movies’ big night, and a big night for Shorts too! Doc Shorts even got a rare shoutout during Conan O’Brien’s opening monologue, and at one point the telecast practically ground to a halt thanks to the sheer volume of cheering in the auditorium.

Just a few years ago, the three short film categories were nearly dropped from the broadcast altogether. This year, though, they delivered some of the night’s best moments: a rare piece of Oscar history repeated itself, one winning film’s central subject made a powerful plea on stage, and the filmmakers used their time to share heartfelt messages of hope — and remind us of the power of art to shape a better world.⁠

Congrats to all the nominees, but here are the winners, along with short commentary from S/W co-founder, Jason Sondhi. 

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Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film

Winner: The Girl Who Cried Pearls by Chris Lavis & Maciek Szczerbowski

Smart money had coalesced around Butterfly, and we chose Retirement Plan in our official prediction post. All this shows how the machinations of award season can obscure more than they clarify, because if you asked us last June what would win, this would have been our pick. It’s a fine choice too—we really like the film—and it’s well deserved that Lavis and Szczerbowski earn their statuettes 19 years after failing to win for Madame Tutli-Putli. The legacy of that short has grown through the years with its continued success online, to the point that it is now unquestionably a modern classic. Congrats to the National Film Board for this win, and here’s hoping The Girl Who Cried Pearls can follow a similar trajectory. 

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Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film

Winner: All the Empty Rooms by Joshua Seftel

Another win for Netflix, and another redemption story, with Seftel earning a statuette in his second try. All the Empty Rooms was our predicted winner and in our minds a worthy one—it’s a tasteful and truly moving film experience, containing a vital message against the normalization of school shootings in America. Accompanied on stage by the mother of Jackie, one of the murdered children whose rooms were photographed in the film, Seftel ceded the mic, and her heartfelt plea ended up being one of the most powerful moments of the evening. 

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Academy Award for Best Live-Action Short Film

Winner (Tie!): The Singers by Sam Davis & Two People Exchanging Saliva by Natalie Musteata & Alexandre Singh

Holy moly, history made! Only the 7th tie in Oscar history, and the first since 2012. Pundits were split between the two films, and we were too. Davis has graced the pages of S/W many times, and we featured Musteata and Singh’s film in November. It was hard to choose, and ultimately, the Academy didn’t have to, with both film teams having their moment on the stage. The split win also recognizes the two most effective acquirers of Oscar shorts right now—Netflix and The New Yorker. 

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