As the SXSW Film Festival gears up this weekend, regular SOTW contributor, Jason B Kohl, sat down with two filmmakers from UCLA's MFA Directing Program en route to Austin. Their shorts couldn't be more different from each other in every aspect from production through post, but the two had many common insights to share.

The concluding chapter of  BMW's branded documentary experiment which I'm posting a day late. Apologies, I know you must be simply FURIOUS with me! No, really, if you've been eagerly awaiting these, then I'm sorry.

3rd of this 4 part BMW series debuts today, titled "Reinventing Mobility". In this installment our crew of talking heads gets a little more concrete about what we can expect around the corner from our automobiles.

If you live in the US, UK or Canada, you may be able to see the live-action, animated and documentary Oscar-nominated short film programs in a theater near you starting today. Shorts International is again the driving force behind this great series.

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.

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.

Via a live streaming broadcast beginning at 5:30 am where I am, this year's Oscar nominees were announced. I ended up hitting snooze and missed it, but I had an inkling that the information maybe—just maybe, would not be that hard to find at a more sane hour of the day.

David O'Reilly (the creator behind Please Say Something, one of my favorite films of this year) has a new film The External World that has done well at festivals (Cannes, Sundance). It's not out yet, but this trailer is now up.

One of my personal favorite shorts, Soft, by British director Simon Ellis has come home to the internet. I reviewed the film in 2008, however the article at that time linked to a pirated copy of the film, and that video was soon taken down.

Virgin Media Shorts is fun online competition out of the UK that just finished up its third year. Sponsored by the giant Branson-lead conglomerate in collaboration with the ubiquitous UK Film Council, the event's tagline is "Championing Undiscovered Talent".