ShortStick

The Utah native Gregory Barnes is one of the newest voices of cinema out of the Beehive State. Raised Mormon, the director approached the theme in his 2021 Sundance short The Touch of the Master's Head. In 2025, Barnes produced two succussful shorts in Paradise Man (ii) which also premiered at Sundance and ShortStick favourite Nervous Energy, which played at Cannes and NYFF. In the last year of Sundance in Park City,Utah, Barnes gives his farwell with Together Forever, a film

In her debut directorial short effect, Lily Platt crafts a portrait of an actress working in the absurd subgenre of crisis acting. Casting the great Sarah Steele as her lead actor Platt extracts the more comedic aspects of the profession. Steele's character is positioned as a reckless person, creating parallel realities to hone her craft, while avoiding the own trauma in her life. Platt won the Short Film Jury Award for U.S. Fiction at this years Sundance, qualifying it for t

Butcher’s Stain is the well deserved student academy award silver medalist of 2025, from emerging filmmaker Meyer Levinson-Blount who not only directs but also acts in this film. The film takes place in a Tel Aviv supermarket, post-October 7th attacks where someone has been tearing down posters of the hostages in the staff breakroom. Tension builds as the senior staff attempts to handle the delicate situation. With a creatively formulated script it cautions against racism and

Here at ShortStick, there is nothing we love to do more than make lists. Over the past few years we have experimented with different formats to highlight what we feel are our favourite shorts of the year including our "ShortStick Picks." This year we settled on curating our Top 75 favourite shorts of the year. This list was made with a lot of love. After seeing well over a thousand short films between the four of us this year, it is a mix of the best awards contenders and fes

In his debut as a director, Lee Knight, a trained British actor, imprints the kindness of friendship between a young man named JJ played by Alistair Nwachukwu and an elderly lady played by the legendary Miriam Margolyes. In A Friend of Dorothy, Knight crafts a heartwarming story about artistry, friendship and companionship. Listen to the podcast above to hear Pedro's conversation with Lee Knight. A Friend of Dorothy, dir. Lee Knight A Friend of Dorothy  is what I call a "comf

In Retirement Plan, we follow the journey of Ray, a man with a detached attitude toward his own life. However, dreaming of his retirement days, Ray finds joy in the desire to discover the world. In the film by John Kelly, we watch a slice-of-life type of story questioning the human tendency to dream of the future, instead of living in the moment. Listen above as Pedro speaks to director John Kelly and Tara Lawall about the short. Retirement Plan, dir. John Kelly “I should exe