My particular bent is to render an optimistic future because we are rehearsing for our own future—why not do it as pleasantly as possible? —Syd Mead The next installment in the BMW short documentary series: Activate the Future dropped today with part 2: "The Future Just Isn't What it Used to Be". Much of the same cast of talking heads from part 1 join us again, and this time talk about how the sci-fi has historically gotten major transportation advances wrong; plus why there is such a difficulty in predicting the course of future developments.

Part 2 of Everything is a Remix dropped days ago and, based largely on its growing base of supporters, has since found an online audience of hundreds of thousands. We caught up with director, Kirby Ferguson, to find out how he managed to pull it all off.

Sundance is over, and with this, the last batch of 2011 Sundance short films released to the Screening Room, this unique collaboration between the most prestigious North American festival and YouTube will be over too. Well.

BMW is of course no stranger to short film, they set the standard for branded short filmmaking with their amazing The Hire series in 2001 and 2002. They are back this time with Activate the Future, a 4-part documentary series regarding sustainable mobility.

In our announcement Tuesday I mentioned my skepticism in finding any of the Short Film Oscar nominees online, but you, our readers, did not share my defeatist attitude and unearthed a couple! Thanks go out to Hans and Sam, now you can watch one film from each of the 3 short film categories: Documentary Short Subject, Short Film (Live-Action) and Short Film (Animation). Follow Short of the Week on Facebook [caption id="attachment_4586" align="alignright" width="240" caption="Click to Watch"][/caption] Documentary Short Subject—The Warriors of Quigang: A Chinese Village Fights Back In Quigang, a tiny hamlet of 1,900 people, a nearby chemical plant is polluting the land and water.

A new Thursday, a new set of Sundance shorts. This is the second of three batches of 2011 in-competition shorts that Sundance is sharing via the YouTube Screening Room, and the fourth of five short programs.