criterionforum.org

I thought this might be a good place to list all the short films people have found dotted around the internet (ok youtube).

Short Films by a variety of Directors listed alphabetically

Martin Scorsese's The Big Shave

Martin Scorsese's What's a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This?

Orson Welles's Hearts of Age

Wes Anderson's Bottle Rocket

Toshio Matsumoto's Phantom

Toshio Matsumoto's Mona Lisa

Ingmar Bergman clips and trailers - but most notably the wonderful (Oscar nominated) De Duva: The Dove a Bergman spoof by George Coe and Anthony Lover

Marv Newland's Bambi Meets Godzilla

Atushi Sanada's Say, Marimo

Director Unknown, Ahiru no waltz (Waltz of the Duck - sung by Aoi Miyazaki)

Any recommendations out there for good short films available on DVD? (Preferably they should be under 30 minutes, but this is not an iron clad rule.) I'm familiar with the classics, of course – Un Chien Andalou, Zero de conduit, Meshes of the Afternoon, Two Men and a Wardrobe, La Jetée – but I'm wondering if there are other, less well-known works that people have seen and recommend – especially, work done in the last twenty years?

p.s. Not sure this is a new post, but I did a search and came up with nothing.

The Journal of Short Film is a quarterly "magazine" dedicated exclusively to presenting short films from around the world. The quality varies, as one might expect, but at $10 a pop it's well worth taking a chance.

Balthazar493 wrote:Not sure this is a new post, but I did a search and came up with nothing.

I don't think we had anything that specifically addressed what shorts are available on DVD. The Lists Project attempted a short films list last year, and you'll find lots of good recommendations in this thread.

I'll throw out a couple of completely random recommendations, though they are not the contemporary shorts you are looking for. Check out Jules Dassin's The Tell-Tale Heart on Warner's DVD of Shadow of the Thin Man, and Clu Gulager's A Day With the Boys on Criterion's disc of George Washington.

Thanks for this. I'll start looking for them.

Faux Hulot wrote:The Journal of Short Film is a quarterly "magazine" dedicated exclusively to presenting short films from around the world. The quality varies, as one might expect, but at $10 a pop it's well worth taking a chance.

Along those same lines, there's Wholphin

Balthazar493 wrote:Any recommendations out there for good short films available on DVD?

There is an incredible selection of short film discs at Chalet.

I'm particularly fond of the Experience(s) discs. Not every short is a winner, but there are so many that are and the selection is fascinating. It is well worth exploring the other DVDs offered in this section of their website, and I've been happy with all of those I've tried.

Balthazar493 wrote:Any recommendations out there for good short films available on DVD?

Three personal favorites of mine (nothing from the last twenty years though) ...

Obras Documentais de Artavazd Pelechian
He Who Hits First, Hits Twice: The Urgent Cinema of Santiago Alvarez
Geoffrey Jones: The Rhythm of Film

Even though the Other Cinema site lists the Alvarez set as "not available yet" it was already released a few years ago and is now OOP.

Some labels - the BFI (UK), Chalet Films (France), PWA (Poland) - have very strong track records in short-film distribution, and it's well worth trawling through their entire catalogues.

I also thoroughly recommend the Cinema 16 series, whose releases generally balance the familiar and unfamiliar, and most of their titles have commentaries.

From BFI, you would not go wrong by purchasing Evgenii Bauer's Mad Love, the Silent Shakespeare and the Dicken's Before Sound collections. They are all treasures in my collection, particularly the Shakespear and the Dicken's sets.

Blue Dolphin's UK release of the Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet / The Cello is also of excellent quality (depending on how much burnt in subs will affect your enjoyment of the films), with strong transfers and the option of jumping to any of the films, or playing through as a whole. The films are somewhat of a mixed bag, but, the results are interesting even in the weakest of the films. Play.com seems to be the only place still selling the collection as a pairing in the UK at the moment (here), and I'd endorse them on the whole (obviously taking into account how much you like the director's involved) despite no input from anyone involved (no commentary, no interviews, no statements).

Various (Archive.org)

Various (Library of Congress)

Various (National Film Board of Canada)

No Lies... (Mitchell Block, 1973)

My Name is Oona (Gunvor Nelson, 1969)

A Movie (Bruce Connor, 1958)

Eveready Harton in Buried Treasure (E. Hardon, 1929)

Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse (Barney Elliot, 1940)

Pull My Daisy (Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie, 1959)

Moonbird (John Hubley, 1959)

Fantasmagorie (Émile Cohl, 1908)

Let's All Go to the Lobby (Dave Fleischer, 1957)

OffOn (Scott Bartlett, 1972)

Multiple Sidosis (Sid Laverents, 1970)

Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (Todd Haynes, 1987)

...and these are just a few. I'll post some more later.