Ellington

Short films invite limitless opportunities for creative exploration, and these films offer some of the best entertainment at the Sundance Film Festival. In this fiercely competitive category, a winning film is beyond formula and the expected.

Drunk History: Douglass & Lincoln , which is directed by Jeremy Konner from a script written by Derek Waters, won the jury award for Best U.S. Short Filmmaking. Drunk History is edgy, funny and over-the-top. It works because of its audacity. After two bottles of wine, and drunk as a skunk, Jen Kirkman retells her understanding of an historical event involving Abraham Lincoln and freed slave Frederick Douglass. Two actors playing Lincoln and Douglas reenact Kirkman's story in her words. It takes a moment to figure out that Lincoln is the less-than-presidential Will Ferrell and Douglass is the always debonair Don Cheadle.

Six Dollar Fifty Man, directed by Mark Albiston & Louis Sutherland won the jury award for Best International Short Filmmaking. Honorable mentions include: Born Sweet , directed by Cynthia Wade, Can We Talk?, written and directed by Jim Owen; Dock Ellis & The LSD No-No, directed by James Blagden; How I Met Your Father, written and directed by Álex Montoya); Rob and Valentyna in Scotland, directed by Eric Lynne and cowritten by Lynn and Rob Chester Smith; Young Love , written and directed by Ariel Kleiman; and Quadrangle, directed by Amy Grappell.