January is here, and we all know what that means—the Sundance Film Festival is right around the corner! Tons of anticipated independent films grace this year’s line-up, among them 73 short films in the official selection, picked out of over 9000 submissions. Senior Programmer (and S/W alum) Mike Plante describes the shorts program as:

Rowdy, reflective, visionary.

It goes without saying that it is an exciting time for our team, as I and S/W co-founder Jason Sondhi will be on the ground in Park City for the event (say hi if you’re there). We look forward to discovering new talent, and catching up on the latest shorts projects from alums Andre Hyland, Renee Zhan, Stefanie Abel Horowitz, Matthew Puccini, Celine Held & Logan George, as well as reconnecting with the filmmakers behind our favorites from other fests, like TIFF winners Brotherhood, The Field and Fuck You. We’ll do what we can to bring the best of these films to your screens in the upcoming months—we’ve got a few scheduled already! 

Of course Sundance is one of the most prominent festivals to not have premiere restrictions on its shorts, and so, in what’s become an annual tradition, today we’re pleased to highlight for you 4 shorts from this year’s official selection that are online and available for you to watch from the comfort of home before the festival even starts. This is just a small selection however, so, if you’re able to, do think about joining us and experiencing the festival yourself.

DULCE

Dir: Angello Faccini, Guille Isa

We caught Dulce at the Palm Springs ShortFest where it was awarded the Academy Qualifying prize of Best Documentary. It went on to be selected at TIFF before being released online as a New York Times Op-Doc. This beautiful documentary takes us to Colombia, in a coastal community where a mother teaches her daughter the traditional harvesting of the piangua shellfish.

ONE CAMBODIAN FAMILY PLEASE FOR MY PLEASURE

Dir: A.M. Lukas

Another Palm Springs ShortFest pick, the film features Emily Mortimer as a refugee living in North Dakota, who wishes to open her door to a Cambodian family to help resettle them. The film was released as part of the second season of Refinery29 and TNT’s Shatterbox initiative aiming to promote female storytellers.

OCTANE

Dir:Jeron Braxton

Fresh off his Best Animation win last year at Sundance with Glucose, Braxton premiered Octane at SXSW. Just as surreal and entertaining, with his distinct animation style that feels like a video-game and a narrative just as powerful, Octane sees a man race through hell and back to get what he wants.

BLACK 14

Dir:Darius Clark Monroe

Executive produced by Spike Lee and under the TOPIC flag, this extremely powerful short documentary follows a group of college athletes from the University of Wyoming, The Black 14, who decided to protest a long-standing racial injustice in 1969, decades before Colin Kaepernick.