Following up last year’s competition, the team behind the The Social Network (Kevin Spacey and Dana Brunetti‘s Trigger Street Productions) once again gave budding filmmakers a chance to break out by directing a short film. This year, Jameson First Shot’s contest featured leading man, Willem Dafoe. Although no whiskey was involved, we’ve now got shorts from the three top winners and they are all well worth watching.

Coming from Johannesburg, South Africa, Hanneke Schutte crafted Saving Norman, which follows Dafoe as a hypochondriac ex-ping-pong player who never got over missing a major tournament final because of a cold. Then there is Russian director Anton Lanshakov‘s The Smile Man, which follows Dafoe’s “curse” of only being able to smile after a spinal injury caused by a car accident. Lastly, we have NYU’s Shirlyn Wong, who gave us Love’s Routine, a dark, touching look at Dafoe’s soothing an elderly woman, with more under the surface. Watch them all below.

Which of the short films is your favorite?

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