Review: Sundance Short Film Tour helps you imagine the good old days of going to a film festival

Since it’s unclear what going to the Sundance Film Festival will be like in 2021 — whether you’re more likely to travel to Park City or stay in your city or watch on your home screen — it’s good that the Sundance Institute has moved its annual roadshow of short films to “virtual cinemas,” so we can remember how things used to be.

The six shorts in this 80-minute package run are a fascinating mix of drama, comedy, animation and documentary, telling stories of Christian prophesy, menopause, grief, hunger and goats — lots of goats.

A quick rundown, in show order:

• “Benevolent Ba,” written and directed by Diffan Sina Norman, shows a Muslim family in Malaysia, who have driven to fulfill the mother’s wishes of having a goat humanely slaughtered by Muslim halal protocols. Somehow, Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” is also involved in this quick, frenetic comedy.

• “Hot Flash,” by Canadian director-writer Thea Hollatz, shows a TV weather forecaster dealing with a snowstorm and menopausal hot flashes at the same time. Animated, but definitely not for kids, this one’s funny, shocking and charming in equal measure.

• “The Deepest Hole,” writer-director Matt McCormick’s cleverly surrealist documentary, encompasses the Cold War, conspiracy theorist Art Bell, opportunistic televangelists, and the story of the race to bore a hole through the earth’s crust. (Warning: McCormick uses some strobing effects during this film, so if you’re sensitive to that sort of thing, close your eyes for a minute or two and just listen.)

• “Meats” is essentially a filmed monologue by writer-director-actor Ashley Williams, as a pregnant vegan trying to rationalize her desire to butcher a whole lamb. Williams — who played Jim Gaffigan’s wife on his TV show and does a lot of Hallmark Channel Christmas movies (and, in real life, is sister to Kimberly Williams-Paisley) — pours a lot of humorous angst into nine minutes.

• “T” is director Keisha Rae Witherspoon’s tender, eye-opening documentary about Miami’s T Ball, in which people model T-shirts and elaborate costumes to honor people in their lives who have recently died. Witherspoon follows three participants of the ball, collecting heartbreaking stories and memories that make the people telling them smile.

• “So What If the Goats Die?,” this year’s Grand Jury Prize winner for shorts, is the standout of this program. Writer-director Sofia Alaoui goes back to her home country, Morocco, for this engrossing story of a goatherd who rides into town, only to find everyone has disappeared. Is it the end of the world? That’s one of the questions Alaoui’s spare, compelling story considers, with intelligence and heart.

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2020 Sundance Shorts Tour

★★★1/2

Available starting Friday, July 24, on virtual cinemas, including SLFS@Home. Not rated, but probably R for cartoon nudity, mature themes and some language. Running time: 80 minutes; one short is in Malay, another in Berber, both with subtitles.