The short films on this page exist in a shadowy realm of my liking them that I don't fully understand. If they're here, it means I didn't like them quite enough to rate them one smiley ("kinda liked"), and yet I like them too much to give them the next rating down, "meh and three quarters". There is nothing "meh" about these films. (In fact there are some films on Dust that I also wouldn't call "meh", but still didn't like enough to list on this page.) I don't know, maybe (probably) these films do deserve one smiley (and maybe some of the films I've given their own pages deserve a higher rating than I've given them). But whatever this page means, the films are here. Please enjoy.

Actuary (7:11)
Dust.tv; YouTube

This 2021 short film was presented by Dust in 2022.

A police detective interrogates an A.I. android, which predicts when clients will die. It's always right, and the detective believes the android kills its clients to make sure it's right. The android has predicted that the detective will die in about three minutes, so the detective is sure the android will kill him, while the android insists that during a power outage when the room is not under surveillance, the detective will kill himself to frame the android. It's a pretty interesting idea, I think, and I couldn't tell you how it ends if I wanted to.

Ava in the End (9:42)
Addison Heimann; Dust.tv; Film Shortage; IMDb; Ursula Ellis; YouTube

This 2019 short film was presented by Dust in 2021.

A young woman named Ava wakes up to learn from an A.I. voice that she's dead, but her consciousness has been uploaded to the Cloud. She proceeds to have a conversation with the A.I., and they quickly come to dislike each other. There's a very dark, dramatic twist to the film, which I don't want to spoil. But there's also some humor, including the final line. Definitely a decent little short, and it's the first in a trilogy...

The Black Hole (2:42)
Dust.com; Films Short; IMDb; shortfil.ms

This 2008 short film was presented by Dust in 2017. It has since disappeared from Dust.

A man in an office is making photocopies of something, and is surprised that what gets printed out is just a black circle. He's even more surprised when he finds that it's somehow an actual hole he can reach through... and pull out whatever's on the other side of the paper. He finds some dishonest uses for this, but predictably enough, it doesn't end well for him. I don't want to be more specific than that, but it's amusing enough.

The Decelerators (4:51)
Dust.com; Film Shortage; IMDb; Mark Slutsky; Vimeo

This 2012 short film was presented by Dust in 2016. It has since disappeared from Dust.

Well, I guess this is the first film on the channel, which is the main reason I'm bothering to mention it. I had actually watched it sometime before I started this page, though whether that was part of an early decision to try watching all of Dust's shorts, or just a coincidence, I don't remember. In any event, I don't know how to rate the film. I thought it was okay, but not great. The story is told in voiceovers, by a group of friends who get tired of the fast pace of life as they begin to get older (though they're still relatively young adults at the time, just not children anymore). So they invent devices called "decelerators" that freeze each of them eternally in a self-chosen moment of time. Personally, I see some major problems with that, but whatever.

Dédalo (8:25)
Dust.com; Dust.tv; IMDb; Jerónimo Rocha; Take It Easy; Vimeo; YouTube

This 2013 short film was presented by Dust in 2017 and by Alter in 2018 (re-released by Dust in 2022).

First of all, this is a Portuguese film, but there's no dialogue. The title refers to the name of the spaceship on which the story takes place. (According to Bing's translator, it means "Daedalus." Which I guess is a fitting name for a spaceship. But according to Google's translator, it means "maze.") Anyway, it begins sometime after aliens have started killing humans. We see one woman trying to utilize a sort of hypospray of some kind of medicine, while hiding from one of the aliens. And that's all I want to say. It's not bad as a short film, but would probably be more interesting as a feature film. (Luckily, we already have the Alien franchise for that.)

Face Swap (4:38)
David Gidali; Dust.com; Dust.tv; Film Shortage; IMDb; official website; Vimeo; YouTube

This 2018 short film was presented by Dust in 2019; re-released in 2023.

A husband and wife go to a company that lets them each select a fantasy lover from a list of celebrities, and their choice is projected onto their partner's face. The husband chooses Rachel McAdams and the wife chooses George Clooney, and because of the deepfake technology used to make the film, one could actually believe those actors were in the film (they're not). It's an interesting use of real technology to tell a near-futuristic story. And it has a shocking twist ending.

Far (21:11)
Brian James Crewe; IMDb; official website; Vimeo; YouTube

This 2012 short film was presented by Dust in 2023.

A man named David goes on a date with a woman he's just met named Hannah. She's pretty weird, and unsurprisingly turns out to be an alien. It kind of reminded me of My Stepmother Is an Alien. I dunno what else to say, but it wasn't bad.

FTL (14:43)
Adam Stern; Artifex Studios; Dust.com; Dust.tv; Film Shortage; IMDb; official website; YouTube

This 2017 short film was presented by Dust in 2019.

Astronaut (and obvious Star Trek: The Next Generation fan) Ethan Kane makes humanity's first faster-than-light spaceflight, to Mars (where we have a colony). He's about to make the return trip to Earth, but something goes wrong. That's all I really want to say about the plot, except that the film leaves us with unanswered questions. And I want answers, dammit! Otherwise, it's a really good short film, great visuals and everything.

Imminent Arrival (19:35)
YouTube

This short film was presented by Dust in 2023; as far as I can tell that's the year it was made.

I almost decided to give this short its own page, and if I'd done so, I would have filed it under "comedy". It's narrated by the main character, "Reaper Rick", a redneck former soldier living off the grid in the country, who is a big believer in conspiracy theories and such. One day a spaceship shows up over his house and sends out a drone, which Rick spends a good portion of the film firing upon with his considerable arsenal, but he can't seem to hit it. In the process, he destroys his own house. I predicted the "twist" ending right away, but I still found the short reasonably amusing.

Interview with a Time Traveler (9:57)
Dust.com; Dust.tv; Film Shortage; IMDb; Short of the Week; shortfil.ms; Vimeo; YouTube

This 2014 short film was presented by Dust in 2017.

This is one I had seen before I started watching Dust, but never wrote a review. There's a journalist named Paul who's interviewing a man who won't divulge his name, but claims to be a time traveler. Paul is skeptical, but the man says something that makes Paul listen to his story. Well, it's not really a story, though he does say some interesting bits & pieces. And I don't know what else to tell you.

Kepler X-47 (11:47)
Amazon; Dust.tv; Erin Li; IMDb; official site?; YouTube

This 2014 short film was presented by Dust in 2021.

A woman named Krystal, along with some other people, are on display in an alien zoo. There's not much more I can say, but it's not bad, I guess. It has a sort of Twilight Zone/Outer Limits vibe. Well, actually I could say it seems (from flashbacks) that the people there signed up to go to the planet, not knowing they'd be in a zoo. Which speaks volumes to how bad life on Earth must be.

Memoir (14:33)
Bespoke Works LLC; Dust.com; Dust.tv; Film Shortage; IMDb; YouTube

This 2016 short film was presented by Dust in 2017 (re-released in 2022).

A scientist named Dr. Theodore Maine is working on, I guess, a sort of holographic imaging system that would let a person (like himself) relive memories, or whatever. He wants to visit his late mother in the hospital, on her last day of life, because in reality he had left before she died, and he regrets it. Then he goes to work at a lab, where he and his colleague Shea Rose have been working on a project (maybe the same project he was working on for himself, I'm not really clear on that) which would help people with Alzheimer's. A security officer takes him up to a top secret level Theodore didn't even know about, because a young girl named Obee had appeared there out of nowhere, and she would only talk to him. She has some useful futuristic gadgets to evade the security guards, and takes him back to his lab. (I have no idea why she didn't just appear there in the first place, while he was there, but whatevs.) And she tells him she's from the future. That's all I want to say about the plot, but it's all fairly interesting and touching. It would be better as a feature film, though, and this short is in fact a proof of concept, though I don't know that a feature version will ever be made, which is a shame.

Robbie (8:45)
Dust.com; IMDb; Short of the Week; shortfil.ms; Vimeo; YouTube

This 2012 short film was presented by Dust in 2019.

Sometime prior to seeing this on Dust, I saw it on Short of the Week, but decided not to write a review at that time. After watching it for the second time on Dust, I kind of wanted to write a review, but wasn't sure what rating to give it. I just knew my enjoyment of it was less than the film deserves. And I feel bad about that. So to avoid rating it, I decided to put it on this page. Anyway, the film is narrated by a robot named Robbie, who tells us his life story in the final minutes before his battery dies. That's pretty much all I can say about it, but it's definitely a decent film.

Robot & Scarecrow (12:22)
Dust.com; Dust.tv; Factory Fifteen; IMDb; Nexus Studios; Short of the Week; The Space; Vimeo; YouTube

This 2017 short film was presented by Dust in 2018.

This is something I saw before I ever started watching Dust. (Probably I discovered it via Short of the Week, but I'm not sure.) I didn't bother writing anything about it at the time, but once I came upon it again on Dust, I found it memorable, and thought I should at least put a mention of it here. So... there's a robot pop star, who meets a scarecrow, and um... I dunno what else to say. But I liked the look of the film.

Six (11:12)
Dust.tv; IMDb; YouTube

IMDb says this is from 2022, and it did premiere online in 2022 (on Dust, and later on Alter), but Dust's page for the short says it's from 2016. I can't find any other information about it online to confirm that. Anyway, it's about a girl named Charlie (Anne Winters) who works as a prostitute to find victims; she's actually a vampire. One night one of her intended victims turns out to be an agent of some organization that hunts vampires, named Davis (William Fichtner). He offers her a job hunting her own kind, otherwise he'll kill her. (If she accepts, she would be renamed "Six".) We don't get to see what she decides, but it seems like a good start to a potential series or film. But if this was made way back in 2016, I doubt any more will come of it, which is kind of a shame. I thought it was just okay as a short film, but could be much better in a longer format.

Sparks! (16:16)
Dust.tv; IMDb; Robert Benjamin; Vimeo; YouTube

This 2018 short film was presented by Dust in 2022.

So, there's this office with a bunch of identical androids (who don't speak), all typing code nonstop throughout the workday. But one of them does stop whenever he sees his human supervisor, with whom he has fallen in love. (This is apparently because that one android had received some kind of upgrade.) Every time he looks at her, his robotic heart explodes. A repairman fixes him up twice, but after the third time, the android gets thrown out with the trash. Meanwhile, the android witnesses another employee of the company sexually harassing the woman he's in love with. Eventually, she takes the android home and fixes him up, and finds a use for him. And that's all I want to say. It's a fairly interesting story, I guess, with minimal dialogue.

A Stitch in Time (8:09)
Dust.com; Dust.tv; IMDb; Stephen Graves; Vimeo; YouTube

This 2008 short film was presented by Dust in 2018.

A man returns home and finds signs that someone else has been there, and may still be. So he grabs a golf club and starts looking for the intruder. What he eventually finds is a thread hanging in midair, which of course he pulls on. And what happens next is fairly predictable, but I still enjoyed it.

Straw Man (12:13)
Alex Casimir; Dust; IMDb; YouTube

This 2020 short film was presented by Dust in 2022.

This is a sort of fantasy film, at least that's the closest category I can think of for it. It's set in the 1930s during the Dust Bowl. A girl is sort of friends with a scarecrow she calls Patches. One day the scarecrow comes to life and goes into town, hoping to make some money to help the girl's family. And predictably, things get weird. I don't really know what else to say, but it's a cute film.

Ten Minute Time Machine (9:20)
Charles Wahl; Dust.tv; Film Shortage; IMDb; Vimeo; YouTube

This 2017 short film was presented by dust in 2022.

A man waits for his girlfriend at a bar, where he plans to propose. When she shows up, she tells him she found a time machine that can take them back in time 10 minutes, and after she proves it's real, they start planning how to get rich using it. But things change when the woman's future self shows up to warn her about something, which I don't want to spoil. I'll just say the end is fairly touching.

Tethers (5:21)
Dust.tv; IMDb; YouTube

This 2021 short film was presented by Dust in 2021.

A woman named Anna travels into the past to warn a woman named Rachel about her future. In doing so, Anna could erase her own existence. It's a fairly simple film, but poignant.

The Trap (5:15)
Dust.tv; IMDb; YouTube

This 2015 short film was presented by Dust in 2021.

A man named Stuart invites his friend Dave over to see an alien trap he made. And there's a twist ending. That's all there is to say, but it's definitely worth five minutes of your time.

Tree House Time Machine (12:41)
AllyCat Entertainment; Dust.com; Dust.tv; IMDb; YouTube

This 2017 short film was presented by Dust in 2019; re-released in 2023.

This isn't really a short film, it's a "proof of concept." I liked what there was of it, but I hate the fact that there's not nearly enough to it. It doesn't tell a whole story, and I want a whole story, dammit. So I'm not even going to bother telling you what it's about, or anything.

Untitled Earth Sim 64 (6:10)
Dust.tv; Film Shortage; IMDb; Wikipedia; YouTube

This 2021 short film was presented by Dust later in 2021.

A woman named Marie discovers glitches in her reality. Then a voice tells her the technical difficulties will be resolved within a few days... unwittingly informing Marie that her reality is a simulation. This leads to an existential crisis. I don't know what else to say, but it's a fairly funny short. If I did give it its on page, I'm not sure whether I'd list it under "surreal" or "comedy" or "science fiction" or what.