In the age of YouTube and watching movies on smart phones, the short film is making a comeback, according to Ellen Gamerman in the Wall Street Journal.

Even though it won an Academy Award in February, the short documentary “Inocente” likely would have faded into obscurity most years after a quick theatrical run. This spring, however, the 39-minute film, about a homeless teenager who creates fanciful paintings to escape her dismal circumstances, is beating out Disney movies in an extended run on the iTunes short films bestseller list.

Short films—typically under 40 minutes—have long been the movie industry’s outliers, calling cards for aspiring directors that rarely made any money and occasionally surfaced at indie-minded movie theaters. Now that mainstream audiences with digital devices are searching for entertainment that will last as long as a commute or a workout, the market for short films is suddenly booming.

“On iTunes or YouTube or Netflix or video-on-demand or mobile, there is no issue of length—in fact, shorter is better,” said Albie Hecht, producer of “Inocente” and former president of film and television entertainment at Nickelodeon.

Movie distributor Shorts International now has nearly 600 short films on iTunes, after starting with 10 in 2006. This year, the Sundance Institute began programming a YouTube channel for shorts called the Screening Room. Amateur and professional filmmakers have more ways to get their short films noticed: The video-sharing site Vimeo saw more than 14,000 submissions for its online shorts awards in 2012, up from about 6,000 the previous year.

Rest of article here.

(Hat tip to Lee Buechele.)