The Shorts Story

Forget parties and late night cocktails. To discover which films are getting buzz at the Sundance Film Festival, ride the buses. Whether everyone is squished onto the Main St. shuttle or huddled together outside the Yarrow, the conversation is always about films and gossip. This year, much of that talk centered on the documentary short films that preceded the features. Surprisingly, many of those films went on to secure distribution deals. 'I was definitely not scouting for shorts,' says Udy Epstein, a principal with Seventh Art Releasing in Los Angeles,