Short Films

By Justin D Williams My Girlfriend Turned Into a Worm is the kind of short film that immediately gets your attention just from the title alone. Written, directed, and edited by Alex Herz, the 14 minute HollyShorts selection takes an absurd premise and tries to turn it into a story about love, grief, and holding on. There is a lot I admired here, especially the performances, the miniature production design, and the cinematography, but the film ultimately left me a little unsur

By Justin D Williams Brenden Hubbard’s Hide is one of those HollyShorts selections that immediately made me wish there was more of it. The film takes a relatively simple premise and builds an entire sense of history and danger around it without overexplaining what is happening. It is tense when it needs to be, surprisingly emotional underneath the horror, and by the time the credits rolled I was already thinking about how easily this concept could expand into a full length mo

By Justin D Williams One of the things I have enjoyed about covering HollyShorts is never quite knowing what kind of film is going to come next, and Scissors was easily one of the more entertaining surprises. Directed by Hannah Alline, the short takes a familiar slasher setup, throws in a healthy amount of dark comedy, and then flips the traditional victim and killer dynamic completely on its head. I liked this one because it understands the genre it is playing with while sti

By Justin D Williams As part of my HollyShorts coverage, Cracked is one of those short films that proves you do not need much time to leave an impression. Directed by animator Jessica Rizk, the film runs for just under five minutes, yet it manages to create an unsettling portrait of isolation, self neglect, and a person gradually losing control of both herself and the world around her. The story centers on a woman living alone in an apartment that has fallen into severe disre

By Justin D Williams One of the things I enjoy about covering the HollyShorts Film Festival is discovering short films that can leave an emotional impact without needing a feature-length runtime. Alexandra Shipp’s For Niko is one of those films. Written and directed by Shipp, who also stars as Rose, the film takes an intimate look at single motherhood, autism, personal ambition, and what happens when one person is expected to carry more than they realistically can. Rose is ra

By Justin D Williams As part of the 2026 HollyShorts Film Festival, Sweetwater arrives with a premise that could easily get buried beneath the larger conversation surrounding artificial intelligence. Before getting into the film itself, though, there is an important distinction to make. Sweetwater was commissioned through Google’s AI on Screen initiative, but that does not mean the short was generated by AI. The program is centered on storytelling about artificial intelligenc