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Private Catastrophes Meet a World in Crisis in 'Waiting for the End of the World'
American filmmaker Jeffrey Hoyt turns the language of impending catastrophe towards the quieter crises of everyday life in Waiting for the End of the World, a 12-minute short coming to Whush as part of the NewCinema/Shorts+ showcase.
Made in 2025, the film is described as a quiet mosaic of small-town America, observing subtle fractures in ordinary lives. Its premise grew out of Hoyt's experience of being surrounded by constant predictions of disaster in the media, followed by a period working in a psychiatric hospital where much of that outside noise disappeared.
What he encountered there provided a different perspective on what an “end of the world” can mean.
From Global Doom to Private Catastrophe
Hoyt says the film began with his own sense of being overwhelmed by the continuous stream of alarming news and discussion about the state of the world.
That changed while he was working at a psychiatric hospital.
Away from the constant media cycle, his attention shifted towards the people immediately around him and the personal crises they were experiencing. As Hoyt puts it, he began to recognise how “each person carried their own private catastrophe,” experiences that could feel no less urgent to the individual than the global disasters encountered every day through a screen.
That observation became the foundation for Waiting for the End of the World.
Rather than constructing its story around a single spectacular catastrophe, the film looks towards small-town American life and the less visible moments of instability, grief and uncertainty taking place within it.
Its tagline reduces that idea to four words: “The world ends slowly.”
Jeffrey Hoyt's Filmmaking
Hoyt is a filmmaker and cinematographer based in Vermont whose work frequently explores grief, trauma and the absurdity of existence.
His films move between drama, dark comedy and magical realism, an approach that allows serious emotional experiences to coexist with more unexpected or off-kilter elements.
Hoyt studied at the SUNY Purchase Film Conservatory and later received an MFA in Film from Vermont College of Fine Arts.
His previous short Read 'em and Weep won Best New England Short at the Provincetown International Film Festival before screening at festivals across North America.
A Growing Festival Run
Waiting for the End of the World has already developed a substantial festival run.
The film has been selected for the Santa Cruz Film Festival, Florina International Film Festival, Short. Sweet. Film Fest, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Atlanta Film Festival, Somerville International Film Festival and Ghent International Film Week.
At Atlanta Shortsfest, the film was also nominated for Best Short.
Those selections continue the festival trajectory of Hoyt's earlier work while introducing a film that approaches contemporary anxiety from an intentionally intimate perspective.
Coming to NewCinema/Shorts+
Waiting for the End of the World will now stream worldwide on Whush as part of NewCinema/Shorts+, while remaining available through NewCinema's festival pathway for further consideration by participating festivals.
At the centre of the film is a distinction between the catastrophes that dominate public conversation and those experienced privately.
Rather than attempting to depict the literal end of the world, Hoyt looks at the smaller endings and disruptions that can transform an individual life — and at how different the world can appear when attention shifts away from the noise surrounding it.
Waiting for the End of the World (United States, 2025), directed by Jeffrey Hoyt, runs 12 minutes in English and will stream worldwide on Whush as part of the NewCinema/Shorts+ showcase.
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