Movies: Little Movies Go Big Time

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Two years later, short films have managed to stay inside the Kodak Theater, and even win over some front-row types. Some 30 abbreviated offerings by such Palme d'Or winners as Gus Van Sant, Lars von Trier and Wong Kar Wai will premiere at Cannes this year. Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez have ordered up several minimovies to play between their gory double-feature Grindhouse, due in April. And Steven Spielberg is executive-producing On the Lot, a Fox show in which aspiring filmmakers will produce a short film from a particular genre each week to compete for a development deal at Dreamworks.

"It's every filmmaker's dream, really," says Hertzfeldt, whose 17-min. movie is playing at the Animation Show, a festival touring the U.S. "Produce your own stories, work largely alone and answer to nobody." Ari Sandel, who's nominated for West Bank Story, his film-school master's thesis, puts its appeal another way: "Look, if it's bad, it's over in 10 minutes."