Titular character of Marcel the Shell

While festivals and online outlets still exist as two different worlds, it seems that every online mainstay wants to become a festival (see YouTube Biennial, Vimeo Festival), and every festival wants to have a presence online. We've covered Cannes and Sundance's forays, and now at the end of the yearly festival season the American Film Institute's AFI Fest has a turn with a selection of 11 shorts available through its website. AFI has cheated a bit though as most of these films have been online for a while. Photograph of Jesus made our top ten list last year, Bottle was my pick for best animation at the Vimeo Festival. MK12, featured at the Vimeo Festival with a different film, is as subversive and innovative as ever with Telephoneme. Somehow I missed Marcel the Shell these last couple of months, but it is undeniably adorable, and has, along with Pixels, gained massive attention from the internet this past year. That said all these films will play at AFI Fest, so kudos for the festival for programming such fare when many notable festivals still eliminate online films from consideration. All the films mentioned above are unimpeachably wonderful and deserve to be seen by as many people as possible. There are however some online premieres that AFI is introducing too as far as I can tell. Excuse Me is a 6 minute, humorously uncomfortable piece about a couple arguing over what may or may not have been said in the middle of sex. I have a hard time watching these intimate types of films, I'm the kind of guy who gets squeamish, but in a what is essentially an actor's film, the performances are very good. The writing deserves praise as well as the film has a couple of interesting twists to celebrate. Time Freak is also an enjoyable short, an 11 minute comedy about a neurotic time traveler who obsessively relives the previous day. I enjoyed the light touch of the film's treatment of time travel, but decried the lack of care the writing took in thinking through its conceit. The final debut is Sacramento: A Family Fable, an 18-minute dark comedy about a kooky family and buried secrets. I didn't much care for it and being easily the longest selection would suggest you avoid it. The film fundamentally fails to find its voice, as the comedy is far too low key to be entertaining and the acting is not up to the task of seriously dealing with the emotions raised by the film's early macabre twist. View AFI Fest 2010 Short Film Showcase at: AFI Website