It’s mid-January, and in the movie business, we all know what that means! Park City, Utah is about to be flooded with out-of-towners, ready to watch as many films as possible at Sundance. Since Covid, the festival has become more accessible throughout the US with its online component and it is back again for this latest edition. So if you’re stateside (or have a hacker level strong VPN), GO WATCH THOSE SHORTS! If you’re lucky enough to be “on the mountain”, I’m sure you’re already in the starting blocks and reading to get watching.

2024 marks the 40th edition of the festival and to celebrate this special occasion, in addition to the shorts program (notorious for receiving an insane amount of submissions), this year there is also a special short film screening in the schedule that you should definitely try to score a ticket for. Over the past 40 years, many now acclaimed filmmakers have screened their shorts at Sundance and two of these filmmakers, Mark and Jay Duplass, are hosting a screening with their favorite shorts! I’ve scored a ticket, and can’t wait to see the selection, hopefully it will include some films we have featured on Short of the Week over the years.

As short film fans and members of the S/W community, we always like to provide you with our customary round-up of films (both shorts and features) playing the festival by S/W alums, so you have some insight into the titles we’re excited about each year. Below are those films, with links so you can see when and where they’ll be screening. If you’re interested in knowing what some of our other favorite shorts playing the festival this year are, check out our curated collection over on Shortverse.

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Features

Six films by directors whose shorts have been featured on S/W will premiere at the festival in the coming days. For the majority of the filmmakers these titles mark their feature debut, except for Jane Schoenbrun, who returns to the festival with their second feature, backed by A24 and produced by Emma Stone. Sean Wang was just at the Sundance Screenwriter Lab last year, before premiering Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó (currently on the Oscar shortlist for Best Doc) at SXSW. 2023 was a busy year for him and it doesn’t sound like 2024 will be any different!

Dìdi (弟弟) by Sean Wang, an official selection of the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.

• Dìdi (弟弟) by Sean Wang

S/W Films: 3,000 Miles, Still Here (還在), H.A.G.S. (Have a Good Summer)
Synopsis: In 2008, during the last month of summer before high school begins, an impressionable 13-year-old Taiwanese American boy learns what his family can’t teach him: how to skate, how to flirt, and how to love your mom. Dìdi (弟弟) was shot by S/W alum Sam Davis (Are You Still There?, (SHn(y)oof)), You Know Where To Find Me).
Section: U.S Dramatic Competition

André Holland and Andra Day appear in Exhibiting Forgiveness by Titus Kaphar, an official selection of the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.

• Exhibiting Forgiveness by Titus Kaphar

S/W Films: Shut Up And Paint (with Alex Mallis)
Synopsis: Utilizing his paintings to find freedom from his past, a Black artist on the path to success is derailed by an unexpected visit from his estranged father, a recovering addict desperate to reconcile. Together, they learn that forgetting might be a greater challenge than forgiving.
Section: U.S Dramatic Competition

Renate Reinsve appears in Handling the Undead by Thea Hvinstendahl, an official selection of the World Dramatic Competition at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute. Photo by Pål Ulvik Rokseth.

• Handling the Undead by Thea Hvistendahl

S/W Films: CRAMPS, Children Of Satan, Virgins4Lyfe
Synopsis: On a hot summer day in Oslo, the newly dead awaken. Three families faced with loss try to figure out what this resurrection means and if their loved ones really are back. Based on the book by John Ajvide Lindqvist.
Section: World Drama

Justice Smith and Brigette Lundy-Paine appear in I Saw the TV Glow by Jane Schoenbrun, an official selection of the World Dramatic Competition at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.

• I Saw the TV Glow by Jane Schoenbrun

S/W Films: collective: unconscious
Synopsis: Teenager Owen is just trying to make it through life in the suburbs when his classmate introduces him to a mysterious late-night TV show — a vision of a supernatural world beneath their own. In the pale glow of the television, Owen’s view of reality begins to crack.
Section: Midnight

A still from Tendaberry by Haley Elizabeth Anderson, an official selection of the NEXT program at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.

• Tendaberry by Haley Elizabeth Anderson

S/W Films: The Sentence of Michael Thompson (with Kyle Thrash)
Synopsis: When her boyfriend goes back to Ukraine to be with his ailing father, 23-year-old Dakota anxiously navigates her precarious new reality, surviving on her own in New York City.
Section: Next

Alycia Debnam-Carey appears in It’s What’s Inside by Greg Jardin, an official selection of the Midnight program at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.

• It’s What’s Inside BY Greg Jardin

S/W Films: Floating
Synopsis:  A pre-wedding party descends into an existential nightmare when an estranged friend shows up with a mysterious suitcase.
Section: Midnight

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Shorts

Once more the Sundance programming team has had to curate a program from an obscene amount of submissions, and once more the program shows that as a class A festival they are rather flexible in terms of premiere status – most likely a perk of having (almost) every single short film produced submitted to them. As usual, I strongly encourage everyone to watch every single one of the films, but not everyone has the time nor the ability to binge, so if you’re looking for our S/W alums, below are their seven films and the programs they are included in.

• Baigal Nuur – Lake Baikal by Alisi Telengut – Animated Short Film Program – Another alum (The Fourfold) included in the animation program, we were introduced to the work of Telengut at TIFF and were instantly mesmerized by her unique style, which is once again on display in this short.
• Drago by Daniel Zvereff – Animated Short Film Program – Featured on our site with Life Is a Particle Time Is a Wave at the tail end of 2022, Zvereff is back with another film looking to prompt deep inner reflections for the viewer. The Sundance audience will be the first to experience the short in a cinema.

Ian Edlund appears in Dream Creep by Carlos A.F. Lopez, an official selection of the U.S. Shorts Program at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | Photo by Jacob Rosen.

• Dream Creep by Carlos A.F. Lopez – Midnight Short Film Program – Although we’ve yet to feature Lopez on our website, his producer, Megan Leonard, was behind two team favorites in The Ref, Mixtape Marauders. Dream Creep provides a more sensorial experience than those two and fresh from its World Premiere at Sundance, it will then travel to SXSW.
• Flail by Ben Gauthier – Short Film Program 3 – Winner of the Best Comedy Short Award at the 2023 Palm Springs ShortFest, Gauthier, who co-directed 2022 S/W pick Slow Vine, takes his anxiety filled comedy to Sundance.
• Pathological by Alison Rich – Short Film Program 1 – Returning to Sundance with the World Premiere of her new comedy, Rich (The Other Morgan) delivers a fun, sharp and relatable comedy, produced by another S/W alum – Ingrid Haas (Still Wylde).

SHÉ (SNAKE) by Renee Zhan, an official selection of the U.S. Shorts Program at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.

• Shé (Snake) by Renee Zhan – Midnight Short Film Program – A filmmaker who needs no introduction to S/W regulars, Zhan has been featured on our site five times (Soft Animals, O Black Hole!, Reneepoptosis, Pidge, Hold Me (Ca Caw Ca Caw)), with many of those playing at Sundance in the past. We’re used to expecting eccentric animations from the director, but Shé (Snake) is a live action short, and just as incredible.
• The Lost Season by Kelly Sears – Short Film Program 2 – Sears, whose film Once it Started it Could Not End Otherwise we featured back in 2011, will premiere her new film, an experimental tale exploring the death of Winter.

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To view more shorts from the festival, check out our dedicated Sundance Channel.