2022 has been a big year for short film. Here at Short of the Week we championed 237 new titles on our site, featured all 3 Oscar-winning shorts (we even had a shoutout from winner Ben Proudfoot in the press room after he collected his award), saw a number of our previously featured filmmakers release major new works and launched a new home for short film in our platform Shortverse.

Here’s a look back at the year of 2022 on Short of the Week…

Alumni Success

If you think about the feature films that caused a lot of discussion over the past 12-months, you’ll see the names of directors who started their career, and developed their voice, in the short format. Charlotte Wells (Aftersun), Mariama Diallo (Master), Nikyatu Jusu (Nanny), The Daniels (Everything Everywhere All at Once) have all been featured on our site before. While some of the most-exciting names in stop-motion, Niki Lindroth von Bahr, Paloma Baeza, Emma de Swaef and Marc James Roels, were given the chance to shine on a bigger platform in their Netflix anthology The House.

In the world of features, we also saw the trend of short film adaptations continue this year, with shorts Brian & Charles, Emergency & Piggy just a few of the title to make the jump to the longer format. While on television, the likes of Alice Seabright (Chloe), Hisko Hulsing (Undone), Lewis Arnold (Sherwood), Morgan Cooper (Bel Air) and Reinaldo Marcus Green (We Own This City) all made their mark and the insanity of Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared was finally given a chance to continue in its Channel 4 series.

2022 saw internet sensation Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared finally get a TV series adaptation.

Although we’re firm believers that short film is more than a stepping stone to something “bigger”, it’s hard not to look at the leaps our alums have made of late and not be impressed. While our focus will always remain on shorts, seeing so many recognisable names move into the world of feature filmmaking and television can only be inspiring for a new generation of emerging filmmakers.

Talking of inspiration, recognition is something that is bound to drive upcoming filmmakers and acclaim doesn’t come much bigger than the Oscars. When the 94th Academy Awards were announced on March 27, 2022, Short of the Week was proud to have featured all three winners on our site. Having premiered Alberto Mielgo’s ambitious The Windshield Wiper on our platform in January, we were thrilled to see the film scoop the Best Animated Short Film award. The joy was then tripled when good friend of the site Ben Proudfoot picked up the Best Documentary Short Film prize, for The Queen of Basketball and two-time S/W alum Aneil Karia took home the Best Live Action Short Film trophy for his film with Riz Ahmed, The Long Goodbye.

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The Year in Numbers 

In terms of the shorts we featured on our site in 2022, I’m obviously a little biased, but I thought the quality of titles we saw arriving online this year was truly outstanding. For my own records, I like to personally score (out of 5) every film that graces the pages of S/W and although I consider my self a harsh marker, I gave a few of this year’s picks a rare perfect score, as I honestly couldn’t fault them. From recent SXSW-winners (The Sentence of Michael Thompson and Moshari) to Oscar-nominated classics (World of Tomorrow) and straight-to-online world premieres, there was plenty to get excited about.

It was no surprise to see Oscar-winner The Windshield Wiper and shortlisted The Dress among our most-viewed films of the year, but good to see older favorites like Curve and Other Side of the Box still proving to be popular picks. While films about Diné mountain bikers, horny ghosts, and a creepypasta legend also had great appeal. As did our many articles about the Oscar race, our focus on Sundance and our playlists bringing together the best short films on Netflix, Disney+ and Mental Health.

Riccardo Fusetti’s Generation was the shortest film featured on our site in 2022 at just 138-seconds long.

Over the last 12-months, we featured 237 films on our site, with 46% of those online premieres and 5% seen on S/W before anywhere else. While North America tends to be the home to the majority (50%) of our productions, we were excited to feature our first films from Bangladesh, Dominican Republic, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Qatar, Uganda and Venezuela. With our requirements stating that to be featured on S/W your film needs to be 40-minutes or less, the shorts featured in 2022 ranged from just over two-minutes to just over that 40-min limit, with the average at 13m 54s – something we discussed in our how long should I make my short film? article.

As many of those shorts were made by more than one director, that meant we welcomed over 250 filmmakers to our platform in 2022. While it is always exciting to showcase the work of these emerging creatives on our site and help them find an audience for their shorts, by doing so it also provides a snapshot of the arena and lets us examine representation in short film – something we did yesterday in our gender representation in short film article. With that article diving into our data from 2021, we found that 37% of our filmmakers identified as female and that number has risen again this year, to 44%, while 57% were from underrepresented groups.

Over on YouTube, our channel continues to have our fastest-growing audience, racking up over 46m views and almost 200k new subscribers during 2022, with Curve, Dirty, F*ck You, Irradiation and Wade all joining the million views club over the last 12-months.

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Shortverse

This year we unveiled the biggest thing we’ve ever done—a new platform to bring together filmmakers, industry, and fans of short film into one place we call Shortverse.

It’s been incredible to finally have a place that short film can call “home” and connect with a 16,000+ community of directors, cinematographers, composers, festival programmers, and more. Listen to founders Andy & Jason on the No Film School podcast talk about why we built it. It’s the homepage for your film—the best way to generate buzz while touring festivals, share private screeners, and launch your film when you’re ready to premiere online.

And it’s only been a few weeks! Expect to hear a lot more about Shortverse in 2023.

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With our calendar for the first couple of months quickly filling up, the Sundance programme announced (and full of S/W alums – A.V. Rockwell, Charlotte Regan, Eddie Alcazar, Laura Moss – to name a few) and awards season on the horizon, we’re already excited for what next year has to offer. Throughout 2022, in our Filmmaker Updates articles, we brought you news of series adaptations (Blocks, Scavengers, You Have Never Been Honest), Stephen King adaptations and Power Rangers reboots in the works from our previously featured filmmakers, hopefully we’ll hear and see more of those in 2023.

Bring on the new year!!