Thank you for following our work this past year. 2024 was Short of the Week’s 17th year on the internet and while internet properties tend to age in dog years, we’re proud of how we’ve weathered and adapted to changes in technology and user habits. It’s harder than ever to be a website, something we somberly note as we witness many of our peers from over the years disappearing.

In explaining our endurance, I note that we have stayed true to our founding ethos of sharing the world’s best, most innovative short films with a wide audience. The truth is that the state of short filmmaking is strong, with great stories told in bold styles from fresh and interesting perspectives that deserve attention. Due to the brilliance of the filmmakers we work with, ours is a simple formula.

But, we have also not been dogmatic in how we execute that mission—while we approach the 18th year of S/W, our modern YouTube channel only turned seven. Shortverse, our free-to-use sister project that combines elements of IMDB and the classic Vimeo community, just completed its 2nd year.

We don’t chase every trend, but it is important to continually evolve. Still, we humbly suspect that the unabated dominance of algorithms in deciding what you see, what gets made, and the mass-production of iterated AI slop, means that an appetite for truly independent creative work curated by human experts is due for a big revival. It’s a bet we want to make.

If it doesn’t pay off though we’ll still be here, bringing you multiple hand-picked short film suggestions for you to watch each week, accompanied by insightful writing that explains what makes each film special. We can try new things because of the confidence we have that the basic formula works. Below is a bulleted recap of major events for the S/W project in 2024. Thanks again for being a fan—what does next year hold? We're going to double down on things that are working. First and foremost that means finding ways to innovate on YouTube, shifting more attention and more of our editorial efforts to exploring content ideas and formats on the platform. We also have a very ambitious curation initiative in development that will see us reach out and connect with outside experts in a way we haven't done before. See you in 2025! -- Co-Founder, Jason Sondhi

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2024 MILESTONES

S/W featured 187 official selections from over 6000 submissions
We introduced editorial to video with the Short Films Explained series

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The Seine’s Tears was “Short of the Year” according to our Jury
We hit 1M subscribers on YouTube, did a Livestream to celebrate, and then hit 1.5M!
We got our first 100M+ video with Anne Thoren’s Diagonale (Take that Taylor!)
4x the Views on YT in 2024 with 200M+ views
22,000 new accounts on Shortverse
Shortverse PRO features, like messaging + screener links are now unlocked for all!
️ Unveiled big new Shortverse features like customizable User Collections

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Designed a new Scoring System
Introduced New Submission Products: Scores and Feedback Calls
Nearly doubled our Newsletter to 50k+ subscribers
Content Partnership w/ LOL Network, licensing shorts for exhibition on FAST channels
Brand deals with Locarno, M&Ms, Red Bull, Cards Against Humanity + more.
Longtime Senior Programmer Chelsea became a selected filmmaker
‍❤️‍ Jennifer and Rekka became full-team members!
✍ First S/W Reviews for Rekka (Layla) + Irina (ANU)
New Shop / New Swag