Derrick Bryson Taylor

The distributor’s owners, Amy Heller and Dennis Doros, made the unusual choice to give it away. Their successor is Maya Cade of the Black Film Archive.

The project will highlight scripted short films from international communities along with snippets of a conversation between the director and the pontiff, who died last month.

“Steve’s Lava Chicken,” a 34-second song from “A Minecraft Movie,” made the Billboard Hot 100. He charted before with a song from “The Super Mario Bros. Movie.”