Short films don't get no respect!  For one thing, opportunities to see shorts are insanely limited:  they virtually never make it into mainstream theatrical distribution (except for animated shorts),  and the festivals that accept them for screening are few and very far between.  A pity...  Good short films, like well-crafted poems, are often wonders of structural and narrative economy offering big emotional impact.    We've recently been doing some intensive videographic archeology to ferret out the shorts buried in MRC's collections--both fictional shorts and compilations of documentary shorts.  Check them out at:  http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/shorts.html