AFI BLOG: Media and Technology

Short shrift no longer: Brief films are popular again, especially when the Oscar-nominated ones screen together

LA Times

THANKS to a new generation of viewers more conversant with YouTube than with appointment television, the short subject seems to be making a comeback. “Hotel Chevalier,” Wes Anderson’s 13-minute prequel to “The Darjeeling Limited,” was added to the feature’s theatrical prints after it racked up nearly 500,000 iTunes downloads. Cable channels such as IFC and Sundance regularly feature shorts in their programming. And the Cannes Film Festival has seen a mini-revival of the omnibus film, with “Paris, Je t’aime” and “Chacun son Cinema” allowing the Coen brothers, Alexander Payne and Gus Vant Sant to hone their short-film chops.

But perhaps the most dramatic example of the medium’s resurgent popularity is the success of the Oscar Shorts program, which compiles the nominated live-action and animated films into two feature-length shows. Released via a partnership between the London-based Shorts International and Magnolia Pictures, the program has grown exponentially in the three years of its existence. In 2006, the Oscar Shorts programs were released in five theaters nationwide. This year, according to Tom Quinn, Magnolia’s senior vice president of acquisitions, they expect to open in upward of 70 theaters on Friday.

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