Virgin Media Shorts is fun online competition out of the UK that just finished up its third year. Sponsored by the giant Branson-lead conglomerate in collaboration with the ubiquitous UK Film Council, the event's tagline is "Championing Undiscovered Talent".

Many filmmakers look at short films as their teenage years—happy to get past them and on to something bigger. Jossie Malis is one of the few who understood the power he'd created with his minimalist animated short Bendito Machine and has spent the past 6 years building a franchise around it.