Jason Sondhi
Short of the Week’s mission is not just to program the best short films around for you to watch, but also help discover and champion creators with new and diverse viewpoints.
In that spirit, we want to start doing a better job at raising awareness and celebrating the achievements of S/W recognized filmmakers long after their films debut on the site. This will be a monthly roundup post of updates from our creative community, honoring their hard work and success. This is what we spotted in October. If you’re an alum and want to be included in future roundups, hit us up at press@shortoftheweek.com
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Production
Twice-featured Minhail Baig has started shooting her feature-length adaptation of her short film Hala. The Chicago Tribune did a great feature on her and the project.
Jim Cummings not only raised over $30k this month on Kickstarter to adapt his breakthrough short Thunder Road into a feature, he’s already shooting it in Texas now!
Marcus Alqueres, whom you may remember for the creepy sci-fi The Flying Man, is attached to direct Snowblind, which will star Karl Urban. Variety has the scoop.
Dan Reisinger, known to S/W fanatics for the hilarious Status Update – A Facebook Fairytale received an 8 episode series order from YouTube Red for a new series. Swipe Right, a female-lead Tinder-comedy, is co-created with Carly Craig (American Housewife). You can see the pilot teaser here.
AWARDS
The UKMVA’s recently wrapped, they are, for our money, the best awards out there for Music Video creators. Two alums received recognition, Romain Chassaing won Best Interactive Video for the S/W featured project Words Hurt, & Ilya Naishuller won Best VFX for Leningrad.
Since 1973 The Academy has given out special Oscars for student work. The ceremony took place on 10/12 in L.A., and In a Hearbeat, by Esteban Bravo & Beth David, took home the Gold Medal in the Animation category. Student Academy winners are automatically qualified for the upcoming Oscars, here’s the full winner list. Also an extra congrats to Esteban and Beth who have both recently scored jobs at Blue Sky Studios.
The talented crew at RYOT wins Best Short Documentary at the 38th News and Documentary Emmy’s for Body Team 12.
Screen Daily unveiled their “Stars of Tomorrow” annual list at the BFI London Film Festival. Sarmad Masud – director of Two Dosas & Loran Dunn – producer of The Pig Child, and an upcoming S/W short, Marina & Adrienne (debuting Wed. 11/8), are on the list.
The Gotham Awards, NYC’s answer to the Spirit Awards, and the first big celebration of awards season, were very kind to S/W featured filmmakers. The Safdie Brothers nabbed a Best Picture nom for Good Time, Theo Anthony is up for Best Doc for Rat Film, and Joshua Z. Weinstein vies for the “Breakthrough Director” prize.
The International Documentary Association released nominees for their yearly awards. Both Hayden 5 and Charlie Phillips of the Guardian had projects on nominated in the short film category.
Charlie Lyne & Aneil Karia have both been nominated for ‘Best British Short’ at the British Independent Film Awards.
Releases
Austin Peter’s Major Lazer documentary, which fascinatingly depicts a changing Cuba, has been acquired by Apple Music. Give Me Future will be available to Apple Music subscribers on November 17th.
Menashe, Josh W. Weinstein’s celebrated Sundance film depicting Hasidic life in Brooklyn is on iTunes now.
Ingrid Goes West, the feature debut of Matt Spicer, landed on digital platforms recently. iTunes rentals start 11/7.
Jonathan Entwistle, famed for Human Beings, has a new series broadcasting on Channel4 in the UK. Titled The End of the Fxxxing World, Brits can catch it online in its entirety now, and international audiences will be able to peep it on Netflix in January.
Miscellaneous
Both Toby Meakins and the team of Andrew Launch & Gabriel Miller got to partake in an interesting branded content campaign for the Mars candy company, creating super-short horror films to run during airings of of the FX series American Horror Story. Adweek has the shorts, and caught up with them for q&a’s on the experience.
Despite being a just a few years out of school, Elizabeth Lo, twice featured for her documentary films Hotel 22 and Mother’s Day, has received a DVD retrospective of her work for Video Project. The compilation is targeted towards educational institutions, but with a fat stack of old Palm Pictures Director monographs still sitting on our shelves, we find it very covetable.