Mike Plante

Discover remarkable films all year long in The Screening Room, a new YouTube Channel curated by Sundance Institute. Two new films from Sundance history will be placed on our page every Friday, and we will be regularly linking to shorts from the Festival already on YouTube, so check back often for lots of surprises.

This Friday, we bring you two very different, but wonderfully unique shorts. From Oscar-winning filmmaker Jessica Yu comes The Kinda Sutra, a documentary that combines interviews and animation to explore youthful misconceptions about how babies are made. A seven-time alumnus of the Festival, Yu’s short film Breathing Lessons also inspired the 2009 U.S. Competition film The Sessions, starring Jon Hawkes and Helen Hunt.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, we offer The Raftman’s Razor, Keith Bearden’s coming-of-age tale about two geeky teenage boys who become obsessed with the story of a superhero who does nothing. This nostalgic, yet existential meditation earned a place in the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection and is sure to strike a chord with any comic book fan.

Intensely personal, outrageously funny, fantastically abstract—the possibilities within the short film form are limitless. The Screening Room, presented by Sundance Institute, puts exciting talent on display with work that takes risks and explores our world. We strive to find films that tell vibrant tales—vivid fiction, powerful true stories, and inspired animation all have a home here. See you next week with more great shorts!