Showcasing a wide variety of story and style, the 2015 Sundance Film Festival Short Film Tour is an 83- minute theatrical program of six short films that won awards at this year’s Festival, which over the course of its more than 30-year history has been widely considered the premier showcase for short films and the launchpad for many now-prominent independent filmmakers. Including fiction, documentary and animation from around the world, the distinct 2015 program traverses vibrant styles from wild comedy to quiet poetry. Each breaks through its limited timeframe with a high level of artistry and story that will resonate with audiences long after it ends.

2015 Sundance Film Festival Award-Winning Shorts on Tour from Sundance Shorts on Vimeo.

Films

World of Tomorrow

Short Film Jury Award (Best of Fest)
Written and directed by Don Hertzfeldt. U.S.A., 17 minutes.
A little girl is taken on a mind-bending tour of the distant future.

SMILF

Short Film Jury Prize: US Fiction
Written and directed by Frankie Shaw. USA, 9 minutes.
A young single mother struggles to balance her old life of freedom with her new one as mom. It all comes to a head during one particular nap-time when Bridgette invites an old friend over for a visit.

Oh Lucy!

Short Film Jury Prize: International Fiction
Written and directed by Atsuko Hirayanagi. Japan/Singapore/U.S.A, 22 minutes.
Setsuko, a 55-year-old single so-called office lady in Tokyo, is given a blonde wig and a new identity, Lucy, by her young, unconventional English-language teacher. “Lucy” awakens desires in Setsuko she never knew existed.

The Face of Ukraine: Casting Oksana Baiul

Short Film Jury Prize: Non-Fiction
Written and directed by Kitty Green. Russian and Ukrainian, 7 minutes.
Adorned in pink sequins, little girls from across a divided, war-torn Ukraine audition to play the role of Olympic champion figure skater Oksana Baiul, whose tears of joy once united their troubled country.

Storm hits jacket

Short Film Jury Prize: Animation
Written and directed by Paul Cabon. 2014, France, 13 minutes.
A storm reaches the shores of Brittany. Nature goes crazy, and two young scientists get caught up in the chaos. Espionage, romantic tension, and mysterious events clash with enthusiasm and randomness.

Object

Short Film Special Jury Prize for Poetic Vision
Written and directed by Paulina Skibińska. Poland, 15 minutes.
A creative image of an underwater search in the dimensions of two worlds—ice desert and under water— told from the point of view of the rescue team, of the diver, and of the ordinary people waiting on the shore.

Director Bios

SMILF: SMILF is Frankie Shaw’s first short film, which she wrote, directed and starred in. She is currently developing a TV show from the story. Shaw graduated from Barnard College of Columbia University with a degree in literature, then moved to Los Angeles where she currently lives. Shaw first received recognition acting in the completely improvised Sundance film The Freebie and then as the oddball drunken cheerleader in the sitcom Blue Mountain State.

OBJECT: Paulina Skibińska, born in 1987 in Kowary, near Jelenia Góra, Poland, graduated from the Post-Secondary Studio of Culture Animation in Wrocław in 2009. She earned her M.A. degree in screenwriting at the Łódź Film School (2014), where she is now pursuing her Ph.D. studies. OBJECT isher first film as director. Being a screenwriter of numerous internationally awarded short fiction and animated films, including http://, The Kiss and 48hTV, Paulina is presently at work on her full-length fiction debut film.

STORM HITS JACKET: Born in Brest in 1985, Paul Cabon is a French director and animator. After a course in applied arts at Estienne (Paris), he attended ESAAT in Roubaix where he graduated in animation. Between 2007 and 2009 he studied at La Poudrière in Valence, where he directed Sauvage, which won the special student film prize in the Annecy festival in 2010. He has worked as an animator, scriptwriter and background artist and character designer for the series Michel at Folimage and as an illustrator in various fanzines.

OH LUCY!: Atsuko Hirayanagi was born in Nagano and raised in Chiba, Japan. She is a recent graduate of NYU Tisch School of The Arts, Asia with an MFA in Film Production, where she received the Cathay Scholarship from Singapore’s Cathay Organization. Her short films have played at numerous film festivals, including Clermont-Ferrand and Tokyo Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia, where her MFA 2nd year project, Mō Ikkai, won the Grand Prix as well as the Japan Competition Best Short (Governor of Tokyo Award) and the Audience awards. Atsuko is currently developing a feature script of Oh Lucy!

THE FACE OF UKRAINE: CASTING OKSANA BAIUL: Kitty Green is an award-winning Australian filmmaker. In 2012, Kitty moved to her grandmother’s native Ukraine to shoot with the protest movement ‘Femen’. Her abduction by the KGB made headlines internationally. Her feature documentary, Ukraine Is Not A Brothel screened at the Venice Film Festival, SXSW, Hot Docs and over fifty festivals internationally. After Sundance, The Face of Ukraine: Casting Oksana Baiul made its European premiere at the Berlin Film Festival.

WORLD OF TOMORROW: Don Hertzfeldt is an Academy-Award nominated American animator and independent filmmaker. He is the creator of many animated films, including It’s Such a Beautiful Day, The Meaning of Life, and Rejected, and recently created a “couch gag” opening for The Simpsons. His films have received over 200 awards and have been presented around the world.

About The Sundance Film Festival Shorts Program

The Sundance Film Festival has introduced global audiences to some of the most groundbreaking films of the past three decades, including Whiplash,Boyhood, Rich Hill, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Fruitvale Station, Little Miss Sunshine, sex, lies, and videotape, Reservoir Dogs, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, An Inconvenient Truth, Precious and Napoleon Dynamite. Each year the Festival receives more than 8,000 short film submissions, selecting 60-80 to show. The Festival programs a 90-minute collection of shorts from its most recent Festival to go on a theatrical tour to independent art houses in more than 50 cities nationwide. It is one of very few theatrical releases of short films in America.

Fueled by artistic expression and limited only by their runtime, short films transcend traditional storytelling. They are a significant and popular way artists can connect with audiences. From documentary to animation, narrative to experimental, the abbreviated form is no longer just for the novice. Shorts have and will continue to be an important part of cinema, storytelling, and culture. The Festival has always treated short films with the highest regard and gives a home to new (and old) projects for audiences to discover and celebrate.

The Festival’s Short Film Program has long been established as a place to discover talented directors, such as past alums Wes Anderson, Todd Haynes, Nicole Holofcener, Spike Jonze, Paul Thomas Anderson, Lynne Ramsay, David O. Russell, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, Lake Bell, Jay and Mark Duplass, Alexander Payne, Debra Granik, Andrea Arnold, and many others.

Recent short film discoveries at the Festival include Golden Globe Award winner Jill Soloway (Transparent) and Academy Award nominee Damien Chazelle (Whiplash).

The Festival is the centerpiece of the year-round public programs for the nonprofit Institute, which also hosts 24 residency labs and grants more than $2.5 million to independent artists each year.