Producers of short films who had previously been disregarded by buyers at Sundance, have suddenly found themselves the object of mini-bidding wars among cash-rich Web sites looking for content, reporters covering the festival indicated Tuesday.?"Interest in short movies is hotter than ever at Sundance," the Associated Press commented, quoting Skip Paul of Ifilm.com (which recently received $35 million in funding from Sony Pictures, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and others) as saying that the Internet represents a "breakthrough" for new filmmakers.?"It's not the old, difficult audition process," he added.?"If their film is good, there's immediate exposure for it." Mika Salmi, who according to the Toronto Globe & Mail, recently landed about $30 million in new cash for his AtomFilms Internet company, told the newspaper, "We're buying them [short films] up like crazy ...?and we get them cable-TV deals and Internet posting within 24 hours." One Harvard film student told the G&M: "I had no idea I could get this kind of attention." But, in an interview with today's New York Times, Liz Manne a Sundance Channel exec, commented that the prices for short films have not gone up.?"The speed has gone up, people have to act more quickly, but not the prices," she said.?Source: Studio Briefing
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