(PG-13: Language/Gore) After a woman calls an exterminator for an apparent bedbug infestation, things get so much worse. But the bugs aren’t the only irritating thing in her life – a telemarketer is hounding her too. Daniel DelPurgatorio’s gross-out horror-comedy short film is a trip straight to Destination WTF.
Artist Roman De Giuli created this fascinating experimental short film by dropping metallic paints and inks into a fishtank. Using 4-axis motion control and zooming in to 5x magnification, he captured the ethereal imagery. It looks even more impressive if you have a display with HDR support.
AI image generation tech has become incredibly powerful but also raises complex questions about ownership of the data it was trained on and its resulting output. Jordan Clark used AI technology to help write this short film about an artificial intelligence that wants to become famous by creating its own art.
(PG-13: Language/Gore) While running away from a battle, a soldier comes across a smart-mouthed rock that offers him a chance at immortality. But this darkly-humorous fantasy short film from writer/director Eron Sheean proves there’s a price to pay for everything.
Miguel Ortega and Tran Ma’s animated short is one of the most artful things we’ve seen rendered in Unreal Engine 5, and its production design and storytelling are top-notch. It chronicles two sisters, and the evil one of them unleashes when jealousy takes over. Their behind-the-scenes series delves deep into the filmmaking process.
Filmmaker Scott Portingale and composer Gorkem Sen created this engrossing short film using macro and time-lapse photography to explore how fluids move, and chemicals react and change states. Each of its vignettes feels like a journey to a strange new world. Gorkem’s yaybahar perfectly complements the footage.
(PG-13: Language) This science fiction short from filmmaker James Parris starts out with a man having a mid-life meltdown, leading to an argument with his girlfriend. But as the Black Mirror-esque story advances, we learn not all is what it seems between the woman and her troubled companion. (Thanks, Rob!)
(PG-13: Gore) A thousand years from now, civilization has fallen, and chaos rules the wasteland. Fortunately, there’s one way out of the HOT FUTURE – epic dance moves. This bonkers 3-part animated series comes to us courtesy of Mike Anderson and Ryan Dickie for Adult Swim SMALLS.
With the help of AI image generation tech, Corridor created this short fan film in the style of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. The crossover imagines that The Avengers (and a whole lot of Spider-Men variants) found their way into the Spider-Verse as a result of the events of Doctor Strange’s actions. Go behind the scenes here.
Vet-owned Black Rifle Coffee Company celebrates Veteran’s Day with a stunt driving film starring sports icon Travis Pastrana and elite rally car and off-road racer “Texas” Dave Carapetyan. “The Final Send” shows ‘em shredding the streets of a small Texas town, Dukes of Hazzard-style in customized Hoonigan vehicles.
(Flashing lights) This fascinating short film from Joel Penner and Anna Sigrithur uses time-lapse footage to reveal how tiny organisms spoil food, others that make it tastier through fermentation, and yet more that compost and break down dead things to fertilize the Earth for new life.
Artist Jake Fried’s latest animated short film takes us on an abstract journey through life and the universe as witnessed in the reflections of our eyes. As is the case with most of Jake’s works, he hand-illustrated each frame using ink and white-out. We can’t imagine how long this took to create.
C’était Un Rendez-vous is a 1976 film by Claude Lelouch, described as the world’s first underground racing video. Captured while much of Paris was asleep or on vacation, the film puts us in the driver’s seat of a Ferrari as it speeds through the iconic streets of Paris, blowing through 18 red lights along the way. (Thanks, Marc!)
Filmmaker Steve Cutts animated short film explores one thing that’s been consistent throughout our existence – the need to have what others don’t – and the willingness to fight each other for it. It’s a grim, dark comedy that reminds us of moments from two Kubrick films: 2001: A Space Odyssey and Dr. Strangelove.
While keeping an eye out on a neighborhood tree, a birdwatcher witnesses one bird murdering another. After realizing what he has seen, the bird tries to protect its secret. Charlie Hankin wrote, directed, and animated this darkly comic short film that sort of combines Hitchcock’s Rear Window and The Birds.
Marisa Tomei, Minnie Driver, and Paulo Costanzo star in this unsettling short film about a body that goes missing from a hospital. When the patient’s doctor goes looking, she stumbles onto an experiment that attempts to capture what happens to our souls when we die. Written by Terry Rossio and directed by Jocelyn Stamat.
(PG-13: Gore/Language) Julien David’s hilariously warped animated short tells the tale of the greedy CEO of a company that produces a half-organic/half-chemical chicken. But after introducing a new variant of his Frankensteined-together “Maybe Chicken” at a party, things go horribly awry.
Filmmaker Thomas Blanchard is back with another experimental film of fluids interacting. He created the hypnotic scenes by mixing paint, oil, and liquid soap, swirled together in a circular motion. The crisp and colorful macro footage is accompanied by a smooth an ethereal soundtrack by Alexis Dehimi.
Filmmaker Zach Dorn’s short film recounts his attempts to fulfill a promise to win a plush toy for his ex-girlfriend. It’s a bittersweet and relatable tale about long-distance love in the time of COVID, told in a smartphone-friendly vertical format. How many of you are installing Clawee now?
After 98-year-old Lillian read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, filmmaker and creative director Chris Carboni interviewed her to ask some questions about the book. He then used interpretive AI technology to create images to accompany Lillian’s amusing and endearing descriptions of the story and its characters.
This animated short by Simon Biggs follows the story of a pampered gentleman who has grown overly reliant on his machines. But when he ignores his robot butler’s advice and starts dating a free-spirited woman, all hell breaks loose in his once neat and tidy life.
This surreal and imaginative animated fantasy follows the story of an astronaut dog sent into space to investigate a seemingly dead planet. But when she arrives, she has a revealing encounter about her species’ past that could change their future forever. Written, directed, and animated by Jordan Speer.
Art meets science in Vadim Epstein’s trippy digital compositions. Ghosts is an experimental short film that explores complexity emergence from AI feedback loops. It makes use of the StarGAN2 neural network to morph between machine-generated images. Sound by Alexander Kopeikin and Fractal Heads.