The Quiet Throughline in This Year’s Sundance Shorts

Feb 19, 2026

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Recorded live from the Sundance Film Festival, GG Hawkins hosts a roundtable conversation with four short film directors premiering work at the festival: Kelly McCormack (How Brief), Anna Baumgarten (Balloon Animals), Ana Alpízar (Norheimsund), and Anooya Swamy (Pankaja). The filmmakers discuss the origins of their films, navigating production across Cuba, India, Canada, and the U.S., working within (and outside of) film school structures, and the deeply personal themes of grief, mother-daughter relationships, disappearance, and survival that unexpectedly connect their work.

In this episode, No Film School’s GG Hawkins and guests discuss…

Shooting narrative shorts on location in Havana, Bangalore, Vancouver, and Los Angeles
Returning to Cuba to film Norheimsund after seeking asylum in the United States
How Pankaja draws from growing up in the slums of Bangalore and confronting personal memory
Making a $6,500 microbudget short inside a real grocery store overnight
Building a short film over eight years and resisting the “proof of concept” mindset
Working within NYU’s film school structure versus creating outside institutional systems
Casting mother-daughter dynamics rooted in real-life relationships
Designing color theory, texture, cement, and dirt as emotional language
Shooting inside real police stations and navigating bureaucracy while telling stories about it
Grief as a “big soup of emotions” and balancing melancholy with comedy
Collaborating with ride-or-die creative partners
Advice for emerging filmmakers about not compromising and trusting instinct

Memorable Quotes:

“Dreaming doesn’t cost a thing.”
“Choosing oblivion.”
“We often live really simple lives in complicated worlds.”
“You are allowed not to compromise.”

Guests:

Kelly McCormack – Director, How Brief
Anna Baumgarten – Writer/Director, Balloon Animals
Ana Alpízar – Director, Norheimsund
Anooya Swamy – Writer/Director, Pankaja

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