If I could have somehow avoided the news about Sundance starting today, I would have—today is the start of the 34th straight Sundance Festival that yours truly will be failing to attend. 34 times have films been watched, pitches been made, deals been sealed, without me.

In last week's first program, Sundance reached back into its archives and issued forth a lineup of short films by four directors who are debuting features films in this year's festival. Today, a new set of 4 short films have been made available through the YouTube Screening Room, this time by four directors who are alumni of the Sundance Labs, the teaching side of the larger year-round Sundance Insitute.

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.

The Portable Film Festival, an online festival with a number of categories from short films to music videos to art films, has just wrapped up and announced this year's winners. Previous SOTW's, Apricot and Sign Language (which also took the Virgin Media Shorts competition) earned praise this year, but the top prize went to the Spanish music video, Hamor.

So in my rush to post the new PES film, I failed to realize it was just one in a series of top-notch releases by the premium cable giant, featuring new or web-premiere work by several of the most unique and beloved short-form animators out there. If you love animation you should know these folks and be stoked about this collection Showtime has put together.

The Doorpost Project is the best online film competition out there. I realize that might not be saying much as the web is lousy with short film competitions.

David O'Reilly (the creator behind Please Say Something, one of my favorite films of this year) has a new film The External World that has done well at festivals (Cannes, Sundance). It's not out yet, but this trailer is now up.

One of my personal favorite shorts, Soft, by British director Simon Ellis has come home to the internet. I reviewed the film in 2008, however the article at that time linked to a pirated copy of the film, and that video was soon taken down.