Screening Room now showing short films from the 2011 Sundance Film Festival

Can’t make it to Park City, Utah to mingle with independent film’s glitterati at the Sundance Film Festival this year? We’ll bring the magic to you.

To celebrate the kickoff of one of the world’s most acclaimed independent film festivals, YouTube and the Sundance Film Institute are teaming up to present a collection of past and present short films in the YouTube Screening Room. Over the next few weeks, we’ll feature:

• Four career-starting short films from past Sundance Film Festivals
• Four short films from past participants in the Sundance Director’s Lab
• Twelve short films from the 2011 Sundance Film Festival

This week’s installment includes four new films from up-and-coming directors. The films’ settings range from a virtual, retro-gaming world to the very real struggles of contemporary Afghanistan.

8 Bits Witness a fight between an 8-bit superhero and a high-def boss, set in a retro-gaming world. Directed by Valere Amirault, Sarah Laufer, Jean Delaunay and Benjamin Mattern.

Andy and Zach Andy tries to set up a new life when his roommate and best friend, Zach, moves out. Directed by Nick Paley.

Skateistan: To Live and Skate in Kabul Skateistan is an oasis where children can be children and build the kind of cross-cultural relationships that Afghanistan needs for future stability. Directed by Orlando von Einsiedel.

The High Level Bridge Trevor drops his camera from Edmonton's High Level Bridge in memory of those who have jumped. Directed by Trevor Anderson.

Check out the Screening Room again on January 27, 2011, and February 3, 2011, to catch the next two installments of short films from this year's Sundance Film Festival.

Kinzie Kramer, Associate Product Marketing Manager, just watched Battle of the Bands

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Celebrating Innovation in the YouTube Screening Room

Whether it's utilizing new techniques, telling a story in a novel way or focusing on a groundbreaking subject, filmmaking is a craft in which innovation takes center stage. So it's with great pleasure that we introduce a new round of films in the Screening Room, courtesy of Lexus, celebrating convention-breakers, thought-provokers and envelope-pushers.

To start, we've got four very different films. "Papiroflexia" (Spanish for "origami") is the animated tale of Fred, a chubby man with a passion for paper folding, who wants to change the world with his art. The documentary short "Kung Fu Wang" explores the life of a martial arts master whose real contribution to society is not what you think. In "Little Minx Exquisite Corpse: Cara," a less-than-glamorous actress in Los Angeles might not be exactly what producers are looking for, but why should something like that stand in the way? And in "Windowbreaker," a pair of young siblings build a home-alarm system to protect themselves against a group of neighborhood burglars.

Stay tuned because in two weeks, we'll have a new round of innovative shorts.

Nate Weinstein, Entertainment Marketing Associate, recently watched "Muni Fight."

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The Screening Room: Fresh Films Just Added

This month, we’re proud to present eight of the best short films we’ve ever seen (ever!) in the Screening Room, our destination for top films from the film festival circuit.

While we often program the Screening Room around specific themes (perhaps horror flicks or graphic novel adaptations ring a bell?), this month’s sponsor, Canon's VIXIA, had just one request for us: skip the theme and bring people some of the finest films out there.

So, without further ado, here are the first four….

“Madame Tutli-Putli” is a stunning stop-motion animated film that was nominated for an Academy Award in 2007. The animation took over five years to complete and featured a groundbreaking technique that included adding composited human eyes to stop-motion puppets.

"The Mozart of Pickpockets," from France, was not only nominated for an Academy Award, but actually won the honor in 2007. It tells the story of two hapless Parisian pickpockets who finally hit their stride when they take a young immigrant boy under their wings.

Directed by New Zealand filmmaker Taika Waititi (whose feature film “Eagle vs. Shark” was snapped up by Miramax Films at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival), "Two Cars, One Night" is another Academy Award nominee.  It tells the darling story of young love born out of rivalry in a parking lot outside a rural pub. Waititi's latest film, "Boy," was just selected for the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.

Lastly, "Doxology," a stop-motion animated short featuring a dancing Oldsmobile, a boozy encounter with God, and lots of teeth brushing, hair combing and flossing, won the Slamdance Film Festival in 2008 and was nominated for a Student Academy Award.

We’ll feature another four stand-out shorts starting December 15, so save room for more.

Dim the lights,

Sara Pollack, Entertainment Marketing Manager, recently watched “Pilgrims”

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