by Tim LaTorre

The Sundance shorts line up must be one hell of a difficult program to select. Consider this: the programming staff had to view 3,887 submissions and choose 82 to present at the festival. For those of you who don’t like to do the math, that’s about 2% of the shorts that made it though. Not a bad percentage if you’re playing the lottery, but a bit more daunting if you’re putting your heart, sweat, tears and, let’s not forget, money, into making a film.

[A scene from Andrea Arnold’s “Wasp.” Photo courtesy of the 2005 Sundance Film Festival.]

So all of the participants should really be given a hand for having their film at the festival. Still, out of those in the festival, a handful rise to the top. Here’s the 0.257% of the films submitted that should create a stir (in no particular order):

While fewer in number than their dramatic counterparts (12 out of 82), Sundance’s documentary shorts are generally more consistent in their quality. This year’s batch is no exception. Terrence Fisher’s “Bullets in the Hood: A Bed-Stuy Story," is a great example of how guerrilla filmmaking can play an important social function by bringing forth new and intimate voices and subjects that normally are glossed over by local evening newscasts. In the case of “Bullets," Fisher’s concern with gun violence and access to his urban community allowed him to talk openly with young men about why they carry guns. The rough, honest doc is most moving when, four months into filming, Fisher’s unarmed friend Timothy Stansbury Jr. was shot and killed by an officer with the NYPD. Capturing the emotional aftermath in the community (and with himself) on video, Fisher succeeds in crafting an impactful personal and social document.

Continuing the theme of uncovering little-known communities, Andrew Okpeaha MacLean’s “Natchiliagniaqtuguk Aapagalu - Seal Hunting with Dad” focuses on the generational passing of customs as an Intuit father teaches his son how to hunt for seals. Featuring the stunning imagery and heightened, simple sounds of the frozen tundra, “Seal Hunting” juxtaposes an age-old tradition with modern means – the snow mobile, the rifle. In his passivity, the son seems almost reluctant to shoot the seals, as if he’d rather be playing Xbox. By our cultural standards the practice might seem barbaric, but by taking the time show us the all the details of the hunt and, finally, the skillful dismemberment of the seal, the viewer is left with a respectful cultural experience.

Talmage Cooley’s “Dimmer” was commissioned by the band Interpol to accompany their latest album, “Antics." The combination of Interpol’s moody music perfectly fits the film’s subject: a group of blind teenagers hanging out in Buffalo, NY’s crumbling neighborhoods and factories. The film’s black-and-white photography and playful camera moves infuse it with an energy and dignity that echoes the personality and perspective of its subjects: living in a permanent darkness with a lot of character and humor.

Rounding out the documentary highlights of this year’s festival shorts, Patricia Riggen’s “Family Portrait” is an accomplished, emotional film that uncovers the plight of the Black urban poor in America. One of the best and most fascinating aspects of documentary filmmaking is when the filmmaker is able to follow a subject over a long period of time to uncover the trials and tribulations that befall them. In her film, Riggen is able to tap this strength by updating the story of a subject that has a historical and artistic foundation built-in: the Fontenelle family of Harlem, who were living in extreme poverty when they were photographed for a 1968 Life magazine feature by renowned photographer Gordon Parks. Using these photographs as a starting point and updating the family’s story with recent interviews of Mr. Parks and the remaining Fontenelle family members, Riggen creates an intimate story spanning over 35 years of heartbreak and hope.

On the dramatic frontier, Laurence Coriat’s “Being Bad” is a beautiful little portrait of a triangle of orphaned teenagers as they weave their way through the city streets, the beach and the psychiatrist’s office. It’s a wistful postcard focusing on the thin line between friendship and young love. The film’s primary achievement is the sensuality of its tone: a combination of drifting camera work, muted colors, willowy music, and simple title design.

Quite frankly, Andrea Arnold’s “Wasp” has some of the best performances ever seen in a short film. “Wasp” is the story of a poor, negligent mother who, desperate for any sort of romantic attention, brings her four children with her on a bar date with her ex-boyfriend, hiding them from him by making them wait out in the streets. The interplay between the lead actress (Nathalie Press) and the actors playing her daughters, also fully realized and brilliant performances, is so raw and brutal that it’s often hard to watch. Even with an unexpected (if not totally sold) happy-ish ending, Arnold’s obvious talent in extracting good performances from her actors succeeds in creating an emotionally confronting experience.

The comedic selection of shorts revealed a thread of lightly religious themes. Nicholas McCarthy’s “Cry for Help” is a difficult film to describe. It starts with a conversation about circumcision between a father and son and works its way to a hippy taking dominion of the planet, passing pot-smoking and dismemberment along the way. That may not seem a typical story trajectory, but that’s what makes it so satisfying, the complete randomness of the story’s twists and turns. With a funny performance as the hippy by Scrubs’ Sam Lloyd, McCarthy has succeeded in making a film that is as bizarre as it is funny.

With “West Bank Story," director Ari Sandel uses a light and frothy touch to craft a musical out of one of the most controversial conflicts of our times. The film basically takes the template of the Romeo and Juliet inspired “West Side Story” and applies it to the Israel-Palestine conflict. It’s refreshing to see the racial and cultural stereotypes we’re used to seeing so violently played out in video news footage from Israel and Palestine so humorously sent up. But more importantly, the film demonstrates how laughter has the ability to lead us away from anger.

The real find in this year’s crop of young directors is the work of Aaron Ruell, who has two comedic shorts at the festival, “Mary” and “Everything’s Gone Green." “Mary” is the perfect example of a simple and effective short film. A total of 3 minutes in length, Ruell is able to tell the story of a young girl to whom the Virgin Mary appears and the comedic aftermath with modern day implications. “Everything’s Gone Green” tells the story of an isolated man who works and lives out of the same building and whose life is opened up by his interaction with a perky receptionist. Both films demonstrate a knack with casting, an elegant touch with design and photography, and an efficient mastery of storytelling. It’s rare to find someone who has such clear voice right out of the gate, but there’s no doubt that we’ll be seeing him working in a longer format sometime soon.

FOR THE RECORD: this review article is based on submissions by filmmakers with films at Sundance. Not all shorts were submitted to this reporter. To be exact, 53 films out of 82 were received and screened.

ALSO: For the first time at any festival, Sundance has decided to make the entire shorts program available online after they premiere at the festival and through June 2005. Please watch the films yourself and come back to indieWIRE to discuss and compare on our message boards. The shorts can be viewed after registering at http://www.sundanceonlinefilmfestival.org/