Sundance 2010 Short Films, a 103-minute sampler platter, features nine shorts from the 2010 festival. It covers everything from documentary (Mr. Okra, profiling a New Orleans mobile produce vendor), to drama (The Six Dollar Fifty Man, a New Zealand entry about a troubled grade-school kid), to comedy (Will Ferrell and Don Cheadle in the self-explanatory Drunk History: Douglass & Lincoln).
As with any shorts program, not every entry will be to every taste. Some would cringe at the perverse line-drawn animations of Don Hertzfeldt's Wisdom Teeth, but for me any new Hertzfeldt is a cause for rejoicing. While some films may be either overly earnest (the Swedish lesbian relationship drama Birthday) or underdeveloped (the Napoleon Dynamite-esque Spanish tale My Invisible Friend), there are several showcases for promising new talent.
If nothing else, stuff like Anthony Lucas' darkly comic faux home movie My Rabbit Hoppy and Eric Lynne's maybe-kissing-cousins drama Rob & Valentyna in Scotland gives you a first look at filmmakers who may become the Next Big Thing.
