With the Sundance winners recently announced and the Oscar ceremony over a month away, there’s an award-shaped hole in the short film calendar that we’re happy to fill here at Short of the Week. Our annual contribution, the Short Awards, has been running (in some form or another) for as long as our site has existed, starting back in 2007, and although we may not have the influence of the Academy, we like to think no one knows the short film landscape better than the team here at S/W.

Chosen from the 237 films featured on our pages throughout 2022, the team of S/W programmers has voted on their favorites, and from that long list we debated it down to a nine-film shortlist—three titles in three different categories— Animation, Documentary & Live Action. In just over a week’s time we’ll announce the three winners of those categories, along with the recipient of our top prize – the Jury Award – all selected by our hand-picked jury (details on our jury members below)

We’ll also announce the winner of this year’s Trailblazer award, an important prize for our team as it’s the film that most aligns with our core belief that short film is where innovative storytelling is born. Our Audience Choice Award will also be revealed at the same time, giving you, our audience, the chance to vote on your own personal favorite, via the poll at the bottom of this page, or over on social media.

So without any further ado, here are this year’s nominees:

🏆 Animation Short of the Year

• O Black Hole! by Renee Zhan
• The Voice in the Hollow by Miguel Ortega & Tran Ma
• Wade by Kalp Sanghvi & Upamanyu Bhattacharyya

🏆 Documentary Short of the Year

• Long Line of Ladies by Shaandiin Tome + Rayka Zehtabchi
• The Black Cop by Cherish Oteka
• The Sentence of Michael Thompson by Kyle Thrash + Haley Elizabeth Anderson

🏆 Live-Action Short of the Year

• Birds by Katherine Propper
• Homesick by Will Seefried
• Moshari by Nuhash Humayun

VIEW ALL THE FILMS ON SHORTVERSE

VOTE FOR YOUR AUDIENCE CHOICE WINNER

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Meet the Jury

With four of our awards (all except the Trailblazer and Audience Award) picked by our jury, let’s meet the talented individuals tasked with choosing this year’s winners:

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The Nominees explained

We asked our team of programmers to dive into the shortlist for this year’s Short Awards and reveal what’s so special about these nine films:

Animation Short of the Year

The trio of films in our Animation shortlist impressed the S/W team with their incredible world-building and powerful messages. Tackling themes of mortality, climate change, and morality, these visually outstanding shorts display the limitless possibility of the medium, in terms of both the aesthetic and the storytelling.

• O Black Hole by Renee Zhan

The first time I came across Renee Zhan’s work was back in 2016 when we featured her third-year film at Harvard University, Pidge. I was utterly smitten back then and my love and admiration for her work have only grown since. O Black Hole! is a triumph in both storytelling and the art form of animation. Undertaking a complex subject matter such as the inevitability of death and, more pointedly, how we deal with it, is no mean feat. Yet, Renee has done it with buckets of imagination and the result is a technically and conceptually mature universal truth that also feels deeply personal. I must confess that I am not a musical lover, so the fact that Zhan managed to win me over with a film almost entirely made up of operatic singing, it’s a testament to how tremendous her talent is – Serafima Serafimova

▶ Watch the Film

• The Voice in the Hollow by Miguel Ortega & Tran Ma

Taking sibling rivalry to the extreme, the 3D animated The Voice in the Hollow is a story about what happens when ambition lets us lose sight of ourselves – and our family. A haunting fable-like tale of two sisters who desperately want to join their tribe’s highest ranking hunting party as the new ‘leopard’, Coa and Ala will learn there’s much more at stake as their very lives are threatened by a disembodied voice in the hollow. Vibrantly lush with its colorful design, Ortega’s world-building feels out of this world and the action sequences will keep you on the edge of your seat. One of the best genre shorts of the year, this high-intensity film proves that animation can take us to our darkest places. – Chelsea Lupkin

▶ Watch the Film

• Wade by Kalp Sanghvi & Upamanyu Bhattacharyya

Animation’s freedom to depict whatever is imaginable with a total disregard for live-action cinema’s need for feasibility or budget has allowed it to be a useful storytelling medium for tackling big abstract concepts like climate change. Wade balances environmental conscientiousness with geeky badassery and somehow neither gets the short shrift. Wade is violent, Wade is stylish, Wade is terrifying—all of which is a tribute to its Indian production team – Jason Sondhi

▶ Watch the Film

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Documentary Short of the Year

Filmmaking has the power to share important messages and in short documentary this statement feels especially true as the format offers the opportunity for vital stories to find exposure. Moving, insightful and unforgettable, the three films shortlisted in this category are a testament to the strength of short documentary and the impact it can have,

• Long Line of Ladies by Shaandiin Tome & Rayka Zehtabchi

From acclaimed filmmakers, Rayka Zehtabchi and Shaandiin Tome, comes the SXSW Grand Jury Prize Winner, Long Line of Ladies. The film centers around Ahty’s ‘Ihuk’ or Flower Dance, the Karuk Tribe ceremony that honors menstruation instead of stigmatizing it. It is a tender and nuanced live history of this Native community that also encourages those who are non-Native to reconsider any preconceived notions about what it means to come of age as a girl. Sun-soaked and celebratory, Long Line of Ladies quietly declares what Indigenous communities have known for centuries: a period is a beautiful and sacred rite of passage. We couldn’t agree more – Lorraine Caffery

▶ Watch the Film

• The Black Cop by Cherish Oteka

Already a BAFTA-winner in 2022, Cherish Oteka’s impressive short The Black Cop isn’t exactly a film that needs more praise to confirm its success, but it’s also a short that’s just too good to ignore for Short Award consideration. An insightful and intimate exploration of the life of an ex-police officer, the 25-minute film employs talking heads, archival footage, and dramatic reconstructions to tell a tale of systemic racism from two opposing sides. This is a documentary of the highest calibre and a timely reminder of the self-reflective power of filmmaking – Rob Munday

▶ Watch the Film

• The Sentence of Michael Thompson by Kyle Thrash & Haley Elizabeth Anderson

Kyle Thrash and Haley Elizabeth Anderson defy the (my) odds with their SXSW Audience Award Winner The Sentence of Michael Thompson. Yes, a 25-minute social justice doc about the unfairness of the American legal system and the ridiculous war on drugs can be poignant, effective, and still feel incredibly fresh and creative in its approach. Anderson and Thrash mix the factual elements of their story with the emotional journey of their participants with a deeply moving respect and sensitivity. The precise framing of the photography and the pace of the edit showcase both the directorial voice of the filmmaking duo and the visual flair that is an integral part of their craft. Each time I watch it, those first chords of that Leon Bridges’ song bring tears to my eyes – Céline Roustan

▶ Watch the Film

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Live-Action Short of the Year

Journeying through post-apocalyptic worlds, sun-drenched summer breaks, and bizarre childhood recreations, the live-action shorts we’ve chosen as our best of 2022 really do showcase the transportive force of fiction storytelling. Stirring up tender emotions or just chilling us to our very core, these three films couldn’t be more different, but they all stood out for their originality and the lasting impact they’ve left on the S/W team.

• Birds by Katherine Propper

Katherine Propper’s Birds is the perfect example of a film that manages to feel light and consequential at the same time. It is a reminder of what life itself can feel like, a distillation of the ephemeral feeling found in the sweet spot between enjoying the moment and sensing that you are part of something bigger. Being a teenager during summer break is the epitome of this allusive timelessness, when it seems like those warm nights will last forever, while the first chill of autumn is just around the corner, like adulthood lurking at the end of adolescence. There’s an inherent melancholy beneath the surface, but for now, the teenagers are just enjoying the small and big moments of their youth. Birds captures all this with an authenticity that puts it in the pantheon of hangout movies, alongside the works of Propper’s influences like Richard Linklater and Harmony Korine – Georg Csarmann

▶ Watch the Film

• Homesick by Will Seefried

Sitting somewhere between a dark comedy and a weird psycho-thriller, Will Seefried’s Homesick is one of those films that feels memorable and unique in more ways than one. With its completely WTF concept, the genre element of the short is more than a gimmick, as it is cleverly used to convey a compelling emotional arc. While the absurdity of the premise is expertly employed to illustrate and recreate childhood from the experience of an actual adult, the performances impressively bring the very specific tone of the film to the screen, immersing the audience in that odd universe. Childhood traumas are the inspiration of many shorts, but Seefried’s approach is what makes the film not only stand out from the rest but also incredibly effective – Céline Roustan

▶ Watch the Film

• Moshari by Nuhash Humayun

Moshari achieves something truly special – it delivers an important message through riveting and utterly captivating storytelling. Right from the onset, the emotionally charged and visually striking film sucks you in with its vividly drawn post-apocalyptic world, and it doesn’t let go until its gripping conclusion. It’s a cleverly crafted psychological horror that blends our irrational childhood fears of monsters hiding under the bed with the very real and rational ones around humanity’s survival and losing those we cherish the most. Self-taught director Nuhash Humayun, who also wrote, produced, and edited the film, interweaves perfectly timed jump scares into an emotional story about survival, whilst also tackling the long-term effects of climate change and colonialism. The result is a masterpiece that elevates the genre to an entirely new level  – Serafima Serafimova

▶ Watch the Film

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Audience Choice Award Vote

Pick your favorite from the nine shortlisted films above and vote for it to become the winner of our Audience Award