A few weeks ago, Berlin-based Irish animator David O’Reilly won the Gold Bear for Best Short at the Berlin Film Festival. I must admit  I was a little surprised. I’ve known his work for a while through an early music video and it’s fair to say he seems a pretty independent talent. Not really award-winning fodder. 
Yes, his winning film ‘Please Say Something’ is a heart-breaking representation of a typical love story. But O’Reilly treats it in such a clever, noisy and abstract way that I wouldn’t have put my money on him winning prestigious awards. Still, you can’t help but like it. It’s a really nice piece of film making. 

But O’Reilly is not just independent when it comes to his productions (detail: the film was made in his flat, with one computer); he also pushes the conformities of distribution.
PSS was originally released as 23 episodes of 25 seconds each through his own website. And now that he’s got recognition, he’s convinced his distributors Future Shorts (and who knows who else) to release the film online, i.e. for free, despite the fact that it probably blows up a few bridges with programmers / festivals /… and other people that could bring in money.
Instead he wants to prove that the web as distribution for (successful) animation has its place. Brave guy.

On his blog he’s asking people to embed and distribute ‘Please Say Something’. I love the film and I’m curious to see how his web-distribution experiment turns out, so I’m happily obliging. 

PS: Also, check out his Wofl 2106 piece, which was one of the few films that made you sit up at last year’s onedotzero wow+flutter programme.