Word came out yesterday of Sundance’s plans for the online exhibition of its short films this year. The American film festival giant first debuted short films on the internet in 2006, but we have yet to have two years of the same approach since. However there will be a good deal of continuity this time around as the partnership with the YouTube Screening Room has been renewed. The notable change is in regard to release schedule—starting today twenty films, a doubling from the 2009 and 2010 offerings, will be released to the YTSR in chunks of four, spread out from now to the end of the festival in February.

Of the twenty, twelve are in-competition and will be released last. The first program, the one debuting today, consists of older short films created by directors who now have a feature film in this year’s program. From the press release:

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By Modern Measure (Matthew Lessner)

Little Farm (Calvin Reeder)

The wages of sin. A foul-mouthed family of brother and sister, in their late teens or early 20s, and their father run a small farm.  During one argument between the siblings, ostensibly about her choice of a man to marry, she hints that she knows why he has no woman in his life.  Later that night, when dad’s sleeping off heavy drinking, brother and sister open Pandora’s box.

· Calvin Reeder’s feature film, The Oregonian,will premiere in the Park City at Midnight section of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

Countertransference (Madeleine Olnek)

A comedy about a lonely woman with assertiveness issues who finds her problems multiplied in therapy.

· Madeline Olnek’s feature film, Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same, will premiere in the Park City at Midnight section of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

Choices (Rashaad Ernesto Green)