Bring the Sundance Film Festival Home

As part of humanity’s ongoing attempts to shrink the globe so it too can fit in an iPod, the Sundance Film Festival has announced that many of its short films will now be available not only to those lucky enough to brave the cold out in Park City, but also to the masses in their homes sitting at their computers.

Starting Friday, January 18, 2008, films from the festival’s short film program were made available online in four different locations: sundance.org, iTunes, Xbox LIVE and Netflix. At www.sundance.org/watch, visitors will be able to stream, free of charge, 10 short films being screened at Sundance. For 10 days, a new film will be offered daily for a 24-hour period, being replaced by a different Sundance short at 12:01 a.m. MST. Although only 10 are being offered, these films range from an Iranian drama chronicling a day in the life of a 10-year-old girl to a story of an Inuit hunter who witnesses a murder to a tale of young love in a world infested with zombies. In other words, there should be something for everyone.

This is a great move by Sundance as it’s the one festival everybody knows about, but few can attend. The festival has had online content before, but joining forces with the Apple, arguably the leading force in digital entertainment today, promises greater success. With film festival and distribution models continuing to evolve (i.e. Ed Burns’ iTunes exclusive Purple Violets, the numerous online film festivals), hopefully the festival’s organizers see this not as simply an altruistic gesture, but as a step toward expanding the festival in other ways than just merely bulking up their gift baskets.

Now if they would only allow those who watch online to vote for the Audience Awards…