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Exclusive: Following the Sundance debut of his newest documentary short, Merman, rising filmmaker Sterling Hampton IV has signed with Sugar23 for management.

Originally premiering at last year’s Tribeca Festival, Merman chronicles the life and times of Andre Chambers, a 58 year-old Black queer man otherwise known “Merman”, watching as he speaks about his life as an emergency nurse, leather enthusiast title-holder, and civil rights activist. Shot in Palm Springs over the course of a day, the film combining the mediums of digital film, 2D and 3D animation, and artificially-generated animation was directed, produced and edited by Hampton, who also penned the score.

Pic was selected by the Los Angeles Times as the first film to debut this season’s new slate of Short Docs, its series of docu shorts reflecting a West Coast perspective from diverse, acclaimed and emerging filmmakers who break with convention to present undiscovered stories that challenge,...

We watched, we came and we conquered. 12,098 shorts were submitted for the 2024 edition of the Sundance Film Festival and of that, only fifty-three were selected. We’ve viewed every single one of them – all eight program line-ups and so we are delighted to announce our top ten shorts of the 40th edition with special mentions going to Bay of Herons, The Looming Cloud and Basri & Salma in a Never-Ending Comedy. Here are ten shorts (and filmmaker names) you’ll want to track, watch and take note of.

#10. Merman by Sterling Hampton IV

Sterling Hampton IV returns to Sundance shorts programming with a docu-portrait that is not contained to one style.…...

In a HollyShorts Film Festival awards ceremony that took place at midnight the day before a tropical storm was scheduled to his Los Angeles, Tari Wariebi’s “We Were Meant To” won a $60,000 prize and with the win qualified for the Academy Award in the Best Live Action Short category.

The awards were originally scheduled to be handed out on Sunday evening at the TLC Chinese Theatre, but they were moved to the unusual Saturday midnight slot as Hurricane Hilary approached.

“We Were Meant To,” set in a world where Black men can fly, won the Grand Prix for the best short in the 10-day festival, which began on Aug. 10 at the Chinese 6 Theatres in Hollywood. For the first time, the top film also received a $60,000 prize from Panasonic, in addition to the Oscar qualification.

Three other films also qualified for this year’s Oscars by winning awards at HollyShorts: Misan Harriman’s “The After,...

The American Film Institute’s AFI Fest wraps on November 7, which means it’s time to hand out the juried prize winners in the short films section. These honorees are eligible to compete at next year’s Academy Awards in the Best Live Action Short, Best Documentary Short, and Best Animated Short categories.

This year’s AFI Fest, which included 125 films overall, opened with the world premiere of the documentary “Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me” and closed with Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans,” already a top pick in this year’s Oscar race. Also screening at the festival were awards contenders “Bardo” from Alejandro G. Iñárritu, “Pinocchio” from Guillermo del Toro, “Living” from Oliver Hermanus, and “She Said” from Maria Schrader. Ava DuVernay served as this year’s Guest Artistic Director.

Here are all the juried AFI Fest award winners.

Grand Jury Prize – Live Action Short

“Birds” (dir. Katherine Propper...