Yesterday saw the release of Sundance 2012’s short film lineup. The official press release is here for your perusal. The lineup is lacking a bit in star power compared to last year when we got films from Tim and Eric, the Beastie Boys, Neil LaBute and other established figures, but I’ve never found the progressive celebritization of the shorts category to be an interesting development. Shorts are about finding the great voices of the future, and we’re extremely happy for all the selectees, which include many friends of this site. It’s always hard to formulate sexy story-lines for the shorts categories, but let me give a try: ONLINE. We’ve been telling people for a while that Sundance’s official entry policy has changed to not discriminate against films that exhibit online before the festival, and this year the message should ring loud and clearyou can have both! Reap the benefits of an online launch and still keep your hopes up for getting into America’s most important fest. To illustrate the point, here are a handful of films you can watch right now.

2012 Sundance Shorts

Play

Sci-Fi Kibwe Tavares 5 minutes

Robots of Brixton

Architecture student Kibwe Taveres filters a vision of a robot uprising through the lens of history, blending high grade CG with archival footage of the 1981 Brixton riots.

Play

Experimental Kelly Sears 8 minutes

Once it Started it Could Not End Otherwise

The mysterious events at a 1970's high school are revealed between the pages of an old yearbook in this animation from collage veteran, Kelly Sears.

Play

Documentary Zackary Canepari & Drea Cooper 10 minutes

Aquadettes

Growing old doesn't mean growing sedentary. Meet the young-at-heart ladies of the Leisure World synchronized swim team.

Play

Comedy Stephen Neary 7 minutes

Dr. Breakfast

When his soul leaves through his eyeball, it is up to two friendly deer to take care of Dr. Breakfast's catatonic body.

Play

Dark Comedy Becky Sloan & Joseph Pelling 3 minutes

Don't Hug Me I'm Scared

A dark take on chidlren's Tv classics, London's "This Is It Collective" try and teach us how to be creative.

Past Work

There were even more films online before the selections were made, but a handful of films that had been fairly successful online were pulled down by their creators after receiving the good news from Sundance. C’est la vie. To make up for their foolishness (kidding), here are past works by filmmakers with new shorts in this year’s program.

Play

Nieto 5 minutes