The 2026 Oscar Shorts: Good things in small packages

The Oscar Shorts (2026) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Unrated, akin to a PG-13 for occasional dramatic intensity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.22.26

This year’s batch of Academy Award-nominated animation and live-action shorts is much more entertaining than those from the past several years.

The animated entries aren’t visually weird or off-putting, and the live-action entries aren’t unrelentingly depressing. The overall “mood mix” is varied, with a pleasant balance of serious, gently moral and laugh-out-loud amusing.

 

That said, one live-action entry is quite bizarre ... and we’ll get to that.

 

Starting with animation, I’ve always been impressed by filmmakers who tell their stories without dialogue, making them immediately approachable to viewers throughout the world. Two of this year’s entries take that approach.

 

U.S. writer/directors Nathan Engelhardt and Jeremy Spears deliver a fascinating blend of carved wood elements and CGI in Forevergreen, a charming little tale about an orphaned bear cub “adopted” by a fatherly tree. Their bond is strong until the bear reaches young adulthood, at which point it’s tempted by the allure of easy human food: something the wise, long-lived tree knows could be dangerous.

 

This film’s overall look is enchanting. Engelhardt and Spears wanted their bear to be “tree-like,” to strengthen the viewer’s impression of their rapport; the gentle CGI elements definitely deliver that emotional note.

 

This 13-minute film’s conclusion is a heart-tugger, so be prepared.

 

Russian director Konstantin Bronzit’s The Three Sisters employs classic, hand-drawn 2D animation, in an exaggerated style that enhances his story’s broadly comic elements. (No, this has nothing to do with Chekhov.) Three devout sisters live a quiet life on a barren, isolated island that pokes out of the ocean like the upper half of a beach ball.

 

Supplies are delivered periodically by boat; the women pay with coins from a carefully guarded purse, which — horrors! — one day falls into the sea. Now forced to earn money by renting out one of their homes, the dynamic shifts abruptly when the new lodger turns out to be a grizzled fellow as coarse as they are delicate.

 

Except they don’t stay that way, once they vie for his attention...

 

This core story is hilarious enough on its own, but Bronzit adds plenty of droll sight gags that are even funnier, thanks to his animation style.

 

The Oscar Shorts: The great ... and not so great

The Oscar Shorts (2024) • View trailer

Five to zero stars (out of five). Not rated, but absolutely not suited for young children

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

I always look forward to the annual Academy Award-nominated short subjects, because succeeding in that form requires a special skill.

 

It’s the visual equivalent of literary talent. It’s easier to develop an engaging page-turner in the limitless expanse of a novel, but far more difficult to achieve the same dramatic or comedic punch in 14 short pages.

 

And, given how many current big-screen films are overly long and self-indulgent, watching a 22-minute filmlet is a welcome relief.

This year’s crop of live-action entries is quite strong, but the animated nominees are ... a mixed bag.

 

Starting with the former, director Adam J. Graves’ Anuja is the gripping saga of the 9-year-old title character (Sajda Pathan) and her older sister, Palak (Ananya Shanbhag). They live on the streets of Delhi, India, and eke out a hand-to-mouth existence by working in a sweatshop garment factory. The parentless girls’ “home” is an abandoned building, their food meager at best.

 

Palak knows that her younger sister is whip-smart, with a talent for math. Anuja is given an opportunity to attend school, but the placement exam involves a fee that girls never could raise. Worse yet, when the factory’s intimidating manager (Nagesh Bhonsle, in a hissably oily performance) learns of Anuja’s talent, he wants her to spend one day a week doing clerical work for him ... and warns that if she chooses school, Palak will lose her job.

 

Graves’ storytelling approach is unembroidered, which adds to the dramatic impact. He doesn’t preach, choosing instead to simply show every detail of the girls’ grinding, hard-scrabble existence.

 

The story’s conclusion is a nail-biter, but additional dramatic heft comes from the final text block: Graves’ film was made with the support of the Salaam Baalak Trust, a nonprofit that provides food, shelter and education to thousands of street and working children in New Delhi. Pathan — as impressively gifted young actress — is one of those children. Simply amazing.

The 2024 Oscar Shorts: (Some) good things in small packages

The 2024 Oscar Shorts (2023) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Not rated, but akin to PG-13 for subject matter and dramatic intensity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

With the Academy Award nominations in hand — and predictions and second-guessing increasing by the day — it’s time for one of my favorite traditions: checking out the live-action and animated short subjects.

 

As always, this year’s nominees range between the good, the bad and the baffling. I’ve long been puzzled by the wildly divergent tastes of those who select these nominees; it’s intriguing that the folks who pick the obviously excellent stand-outs also (apparently) find something to admire in entries I wouldn’t consider for a second.

 

But as my father often said, That’s why we have horse races: divergent candidates for every taste.

 

Turning first to the live-action candidates, director Wes Anderson’s handling of Roald Dahl’s “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar” is the obvious stand-out for bravura creativity. I cannot imagine a more perfect artistic collaboration, and blend of sensibilities, than Anderson and Dahl.

This droll tale stars Benedict Cumberbatch as the title character, a bored and self-centered aristocrat who, as a result of a book he steals, painstakingly develops the talent to see through objects. What he ultimately does with this gift proves unexpected.

 

Dahl, played by Ralph Fiennes, narrates much of this saga — “Henry Sugar” actually is three stories nested within each other — although Dev Patel’s Dr. Chatterjee occasionally takes over. The staging throughout is theatrical and exaggerated, with backdrops sliding back and forth, sometimes manipulated by visible tech hands. Occasional scenes rely upon vintage rear projection. The result is bravura filmmaking, and totally cool.

 

Danish writer/director Lasse Lyskjaer Noer eschews fancy bells and whistles in “Knight of Fortune,” a quietly poignant study of a recent widower, Karl (Leif Andrée), who is overwhelmed by having to bid his deceased wife farewell, while she lies in state in a morgue room. Seeking any sort of distraction, he agrees when Torben (Jens Jorn Spottag) requests company while paying the final visit to his wife.

Except that things aren’t quite what they seem. Noer’s little story takes an oddly quirky turn — the tone and atmosphere uniquely Scandinavian — en route to a sweet conclusion.

 

The 2023 Oscar Shorts: An engaging program

The Oscar Shorts (2022) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Not rated, with parental guidance strongly advised

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.24.23

Many of the past several years’ worth of Academy Award-nominated live-action shorts have been grim and unbearably depressing.

 

Happily, this year’s voters have regained their senses of balance and humor, while still focusing on relatable real-world issues. Rest assured: Two of them still pack a gut-punch.

 

Unhappily, the Academy members who selected the animated entries remain too willing to reward weird style over narrative substance: a shortcoming that definitely compromises two of those entries.

But let’s start on a happier animated note. Australian director Lachlan Pendragon’s An Ostrich Told Me the World Is Fake, and I Think I Believe It is a droll claymation riff on 1998’s The Truman Show (and further inspired, Pendragon explains, by the 1953 Chuck Jones Warner Bros. cartoon, “Duck Amuck”).

 

A young telemarketer has long focused on toaster sales in an office crowded with numerous phone-bank workers … until, quite unexpectedly, the large avian of this film’s title informs him of a much larger world beyond his office walls.

 

Suddenly made aware that he has no knowledge of his childhood or upbringing — as also is the case with all his co-workers — our hero’s disorientation shoots into hyperdrive after realizing that his actions are controlled by Something Out There.

 

Pendragon’s 11-minute film doesn’t really have a point, but it’s fun to watch.

 

That isn’t the case with Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby’s The Flying Sailor, a bizarre and clumsily animated depiction of an urban legend that emerged in the wake of the horrific 1917 Halifax Harbour explosion: the largest human-made explosion at the time, equivalent to 2.9 kilotons of TNT.

 

As the legend developed over time, an English sailor was sent skyward, blown out of his clothes, and landed — unharmed — two kilometers uphill. Canadians Forbis and Tilby intend their 7-minute short to be a parable on making peace with the moment, as one’s life flashes before panicked eyes … but the execution is too sloppy to be effective.

LunaFest 2022: Emotionally uplifting

LunaFest 2022 • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Not rated, appropriate for ages 13 and older

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.16.22

This year’s LunaFest features a strong showing of short subjects by and about women.

 

Akanksha (Akanksha Cruczynski), who takes her dog-sitting job quite seriously,
ensures that the adorable — if overly pampered — Timothée never is out of her sight.

From its inception in 2001, LunaFest — the world’s first all-women traveling film festival — has given a national platform to a diverse and talented set of women filmmakers. From one small California screening that first year, the program has grown into an annual event that has showcased more than 170 filmmakers, and raised more than $6.5 million for local women’s causes.

Although this year’s offerings once again feature a wide variety of subjects and filmmaking styles, several are linked by an artistic response to the norm-shattering arrival of the Covid virus.

 

This topic is at the heart of Canadian filmmaker Andrea Dorfman’s How to Be at Home, a very cleverly animated “how-to” primer on coping with isolation during the first year’s soul-wrenching withdrawal from public contact. This 5-minute short — adapted from a poignant poem by Tanya Davis, which is narrated throughout — blends two- and three-dimensional animation to remind the viewer that we are united in our misery.

 

“If you’re really anxious, don’t worry,” the poem begins, “it’ll get worse.”

 

The subsequent suggestions range from wise to amusing, from “Hug a tree” to (my favorite): “Watch a movie, and watch all the credits … because you have time.”

 

Covid also influenced the “social experiment” at the heart of Emily McAllister’s Wearable Tracy, which profiles an adorably eccentric Bronx woman named Lee, who indulges in “design thinking.” She decided to wear a goofy “crown” made of pipe cleaners one day, as a means of celebrating her friend Tracy’s birthday.

 

Intrigued by the response this drew, Lee turned this gesture into a daily event with three firm rules: each day had to feature a new (and increasingly elaborate) “wearable Tracy” pipe cleaner crown; she had to wear it all day, at work and during her subway commute; and she had to ask the name of anybody who spoke to her about her unusual headwear.

 

As Lee explains, this got her past a life-long fear of judgment; it also broke down barriers, as it provoked — in a positive way — communication with strangers.

 

She did this every day, for more than a year … and then Covid hit. As for what Lee did next … well, that would be telling.

 

The 2022 Oscar Shorts: Wildly uneven

The 2022 Oscar Shorts • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Not rated, and patently adult

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.4.22

I always look forward to the live action and animated Academy Award nominees; it’s fun to wonder if we’ll see the first efforts of the next Spielberg, Kurosawa or Scorsese, or the next Miyazaki or Lasseter.

 

Most of this year’s live action nominees show plenty of promise.

 

The animated nominees are, um, more challenging. And be advised: Two of them absolutely are not for children.

 

Starting with live action, Polish director Tadeusz Lysiak’s tender, deeply moving The Dress is fueled by Anna Dzieduszycka’s terrific starring performance as Julia, a lonely woman who works as a maid in a rundown rural motel. 

Lysiak’s story is a bittersweet “first sexual encounter” saga, but Julia isn’t a fresh-faced youth; she’s an embittered, sexually frustrated, middle-aged woman who has spent her entire life deflecting rude comments about her diminutive stature as a “little person.” The pain is palpable in Dzieduszycka’s expression and posture, as she angrily chain-smokes and feeds endless coins into slot machines.

 

Then she chances to meet Bogdan (Szymon Piotr Warszawski), a trucker who smiles and treats Julia with respect; the flicker of hope that illuminates Dzieduszycka’s eyes is heartbreaking. Lysiak doesn’t pull back from subsequent details; the difficulty she has buying a suitable “date dress,” for example, is particularly touching.

 

Swiss filmmaker Maria Brendle’s Ala Kachuu (Take and Run) is a harrowing “statement drama.” Nineteen-year-old Sezim (Alina Turdumamatova) lives in a small, rural Kyrgyz village. She’s smart enough to attend university in the capital city of Bishkek: a goal her traditional parents forbid, knowing they’d be “shamed” by a daughter who made such a lifestyle choice.

Sezim nonetheless runs away to Beshkek, moves in with her friend Aksana (Madina Talipbekova), and gets a job in a bakery while awaiting the results of a university entrance exam. One day, totally without warning, she’s kidnapped by three young men; they drive her to an even more remote Kyrgyz village, where she’s forced to marry one of them (Nurbek Esengazy Uulu, as Dayrbek).

 

The village women, themselves former victims of “bride-kidnapping” — which apparently is endemic in Kyrgyzstan — offer no sympathy.

 

Turdumamatova’s performance is shattering; Sezim’s despair and desperation are palpable. Brendle’s plot beats are unrelenting; we Western viewers can’t help being shocked by her helplessness, and the callous “traditions” that tolerate such treatment of young women.

LUNAFest 2021: Women take the spotlight

LUNAFest 2021 (2021) • View trailer

Four stars. Not rated, with content not suitable for young viewers

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.16.21

In a refreshing example of serendipity, this year’s LUNAFest — an annual collection of short films by women, and about women — arrives during a ground-breaking year when, for the first time, two women are nominated for the Best Director Academy Award: Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman) and Chloé Zhao (Nomadland).

 

But don’t break out the cake and ice cream yet; during the past 13 years, only 4.8 percent of film directors have been women. Hardly a statistic to celebrate, and it makes programs such as LUNAFest invaluable. 

 

This 21st annual package features seven short documentaries. Each is introduced by its director, and all are passionate about their work.

 

Meg Shutzer’s Knocking Down the Fences is a captivating profile of professional softball player A.J. Andrews, whose jaw-dropping back-field catches are the stuff of sports legend. She’s also a terrific on-camera presence: a well-spoken advocate for her sport, and deservedly enthusiastic about her place within it.

 

Merely watching the clips of her grueling daily training/exercise regimen left me breathless and exhausted.

 

In 2016, she became the first woman to win a Rawlings Gold Glove, presented since 1957 to the best fielders in professional baseball. Despite this, in addition to her busy team activity, she attends university classes and gives private sports instruction, because she needs the money. 

 

“Being a professional softball player,” she explains, “you qualify for food stamps.”

 

This film’s takeaway statistic: On average, Major League Baseball players make more than 650 times what professional softball players earn. And this is half a century after Title IX raised awareness.

 

Clearly, awareness needs to be raised further.

 

Christine Turner’s Betye Saar: Taking Care of Business is a charming study of the (now) 94-year-old African-American assemblage artist, printmaker and storyteller, who clearly deserves her status as a legend in the world of contemporary art. Her shift to “art activism” kicked into high gear following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

 

Her best-known work, 1972’s “The Liberation of Aunt Jemima,” arms that “mammy” caricature with a rifle and a hand grenade, transforming her into a warrior who battles the aggression of derogatory stereotypes and imagery, and the physical violence imposed on Black Americans.

 

She’s also a hoot on camera, blessed with wit and a dry sense of humor. “What do I have now, that’s new,” she muses, while scanning her colorfully chaotic workshop, with its laden tables and sagging shelves. “Antlers. That’s my latest thing. It’s always a puzzlement, when I start collecting things, like ‘What can I do with this?’ ”

The Oscar Shorts: Big stories in small packages

The Oscar Shorts (2020) • View trailer

Four stars. Not rated, but not advised for young viewers, due to dramatic intensity, violence and profanity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.2.21

This year’s crop of Academy Award-nominated live-action short subjects is impressively robust.

 

The animated nominees are … impressively uneven.

 

Let’s start with the live-action entries, all of which (no surprise) are variations on the themes of racism and tolerance.

 

Writer/director Doug Roland’s Feeling Through, set in New York, opens late one night as teenage Tereek (Steven Prescod) seeks a place to crash. He’s aimless, rootless, perhaps only one impulsive act away from winding up on the wrong side of the law.

 

But his immediate problem — where to sleep — fades due to a chance encounter with Artie (Robert Tarango), an amiable deaf-blind man who needs an assist in finding the correct bus to take him home. (Why such a vulnerable individual would be wandering New York’s mean streets alone, late at night, is something we can’t worry about; this is a parable.)

 

As Roland develops this heartwarming tale, we’re reminded anew that — often — the best way to help yourself, is to help somebody else.

 

High-profile casting is the first thing noticed about writer/director Elvira Lind’s The Letter Room. Oscar Isaac — one of our newest Star Wars champions, among many other roles — stars as Richard, an empathetic corrections officer recently transferred to the mail room in a maximum security prison.

 

All incoming and outgoing letters must be scanned and scrutinized. Richard, who lives alone, soon becomes captivated by the warm and sensitive letters written by a woman (Alia Shawkat) to one of the prisoners on Death Row … who never writes her back. This seems grievously unfair to Richard, particularly since another of the Death Row prisoners pines for letters he never receives. 

 

Isaac’s performance is a masterpiece of subtlety and silence, as this inherently kind and uncomplicated man struggles to make peace with his new role.

The 2019 Oscar Shorts: Good things in small packages

The 2019 Oscar Shorts (2019) • View trailer 
Four stars. Not rated, and perhaps too intense for young viewers
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.31.20

A droll familial theme runs through last year’s Academy Award-nominated short subjects: Two of the animated entries are titled Daughter and Sister, while two live-action entries are titled Brotherhood and A Sister.

Can even a doting father survive an encounter with his daughter's
impossible hair?

Family also is key to Hair Love and The Neighbor’s Window, which makes one wonder if this is design, rather than coincidence.

And while numerous entries involve solemn or even grim topics — no doubt reflecting the increasingly agitated state of real world events — the collective package is by no means a slog through wrist-slashing despair, as was the case last year. For which we can be grateful.

The live-action entries kick off with Belgian director Delphine Girard’s suspenseful Une soeur (A Sister), which begins placidly, as a couple takes a late-night drive; Alie (Selma Alaoui) chats on her cell phone, discussing child-care details with her sister. The tableau seems innocuous … until Girard shifts to an emergency call center, where an operator (Veerle Baetens) takes a call, and the same conversation repeats.

And we suddenly realize that Alie isn’t chatting capriciously; she’s in real trouble — the driver (Guillaume Duhesme) is no friend — and trying desperately, cleverly, to get help. Tension builds as the sharp-witted operator, deducing the scenario, adjusts on the fly; the camera mostly holds on Baetens, who does a terrific job. The guy in the car grows increasingly suspicious as the “conversation” continues, until…

Saria, a brutal slice of recent history, comes from Bryan Buckley, who also was nominated in this category for 2012’s Asad, a coming-of-age fable about a Somali boy struggling to survive in his war-torn land.

Inspired by an actual 2017 event, Buckley’s new film focuses on Saria (Estefanía Tellez) and Ximena (Gabriela Ramírez), two orphaned sisters who — along with scores of other young girls — endure daily abuse and hardship as “residents” of Guatemala’s Virgen de La Asuncion Safe Home (a designation that is beyond ironic). The food is awful, the girls are worked mercilessly, and constantly demeaned by a guard (Imelda Castro) who can’t be bothered with names, and refers to them solely as “little bitches.”

Occasional gatherings with orphaned boys allow brief respites … but can young romance blossom amid such harsh surroundings?

The 2019 Oscar Shorts: Quite a gut-punch

The 2019 Oscar Shorts (2019) • View trailer 
Three stars. Unrated, but the live-action entries are patently adult material
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.8.19

I have serious issues with the folks who selected this year’s nominees for live-action short films.

But let’s set that aside, for the moment.

The nominees for 2018’s animated shorts, as often is the case, reflect a delightful variety of subjects, approaches, tone and animation techniques: ranging from thoughtful to satiric or poignant; from traditional hand-drawn cels to the computer-rendered exquisiteness of the ubiquitous Pixar entry.

The latter, director Domee Shi’s Bao, likely will be familiar; it preceded screenings of last summer’s The Incredibles 2. It’s the touching story of an aging Chinese mother who, grieving during a devastating case of empty-nest syndrome, gets another chance at motherhood when one of her hand-rolled dumplings springs to life as a giggling infant boy … with a dumpling-shaped head.

It sounds bizarre, but Shi’s narrative approach is so gentle and heart-warming — so universal, in its depiction of the battle between protective parents and headstrong children — that we quickly fall under its spell. More to the point, Shi builds her film to a deliciously surprising and touching conclusion. Her rounded animation style — no hard edges — also perfectly suits this whimsical little tale.

One Small Step, the other CG entry, is an equally heartwarming little tale from co-directors Andrew Chesworth and Bobby Pontillas. The computer tools notwithstanding, their tender drama adopts the look of old-school, hand-painted cels to tell the story of Luna, an enthusiastic Chinese-American girl who dreams of becoming an astronaut. She lives in a big city with her doting father Chu, who supports them with the humble shoe repair business that he runs from his garage.

As Luna grows into teenager and then young adulthood, he’s always attentive to her footwear: even after she has forsaken the lovingly crafted “moon boots” of childhood, for casual flip-flops. This is a sweet tale of believing in dreams, and of parents who — behind the scenes — do their best to make such dreams come true.

Little films, big topics

2018 Oscar Shorts (2017) • View trailer 
Four stars. Not rated, with some of the live-action entries probably too intense for children
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.9.18

The live-action Academy Award-nominated short subjects are an ideal bellwether of national and international anxiety, and this year’s crop is no exception.

Hollywood responds slowly to social angst and hot-button political topics; feature films can’t help their lengthy gestation period. Short subjects, on the other hand, can be planned, produced and released quickly enough to tap into current events.

Three of this year’s five nominees make it clear that violence — particularly racial and religious violence — remains a subject of deep concern to filmmakers.

The animated nominees, as also often is the case, offer the relief of gentle humor.

American writer/director Kevin Wilson Jr.’s My Nephew Emmett, the stand-out live-action entry, dramatizes the dreadful incident that took place in Money, Miss., at 2:30 a.m. Aug. 28, 1955, when 14-year-old Emmett Till was hauled out of bed by brutal white racists. The 20-minute film is anchored by L.B. Williams’ dignified starring performance as Mose Wright, the 64-year-old sharecropper and preacher forced to watch, helplessly, as his nephew was driven away.

Wilson relates the story economically, deftly sketching the loving relationship between Mose and his wife Elizabeth (Jasmine Guy), and their delight over hosting Chicago-based Emmett (Joshua Wright) for a visit. Laura Valladao’s cinematography is terrific; Mose’s early evening trek to a water pump is framed beautifully against the setting sun.

The script is subtle, with just enough foreshadowing to alert savvy viewers — even those unfamiliar with history — about what is to come.

The atmosphere of nervous tension morphs rapidly into full-blown terror during a savage climax, after which Wilson cuts to archival footage of the actual Mose Wright, while he begins to recount what happened that night (a clip taken from the PBS documentary Eyes on the Prize, and readily available online).

The 2016 Oscar Shorts: Little treasures (for the most part)

The 2016 Oscar Shorts (2016) • View trailer 
Four stars. Unrated, although the live-action entries include profanity, nudity and dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang

Voters in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have an almost xenophobic tendency — for the most part — to limit feature film nominees to American productions. The entire wealth of overseas entries are forced to duke it out in the single Best Foreign Film category.

Kwame (Prince Yaw Appiah) and Inger (Malene Beltoft Olsen) embark on an unlikely
relationship, in Silent Nights.

Granted, exceptions exist; Back in 2000, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon pulled a whopping 10 Oscar nominations, winning four. But that’s rare; an average year generally fields only one or two token foreign nominees. That’s certainly the case with the 2016 contenders: Isabelle Huppert is a Best Actress nominee for France’s Elle, and Sweden’s A Man Called Ove pulled a nod for Best Makeup. And that’s it.

As Garfield has been known to observe, Big, fat, hairy deal.

How refreshing, then, that the two short film categories usually are a gloriously international affair.

An impressive 137 live-action short films qualified for the 89th annual Academy Awards, of which 10 were short-listed back in late November. Those subsequently were winnowed to the final five contenders, which — as has become an annual tradition — currently are touring the country as part of an Oscar Shorts package. They’re showing locally at Sacramento’s Crest Theater, between now and the end of the month.

Voters apparently favored European sensibilities this year, with the five finalists — every one of them thoughtful, provocative and/or delightful — hailing from France, Switzerland, Denmark, Hungary and Spain.

I only wish the voters in the animated short film category had displayed similar taste, judgment and imagination. Ten titles were short-listed, again in late November, from an initial 69 submissions; they subsequently were narrowed down to the five remaining nominees. To my surprise and disappointment, they’re all English-language: three from the States, and the remaining two from Canada.

And at the risk of offending our Northern neighbor, both of the Canadian entries leave much to be desired.

I simply cannot believe that none of the other 64 contenders, no doubt from all sorts of different countries, weren’t better than those two nominees. The mind doth boggle.

The 2015 Academy Awards Shorts: Grim tidings

The 2015 Academy Awards Shorts (2015) • View trailer 
Four stars. Unrated, but akin to a PG-13 for strong war themes and dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.29.16

While the rest of the country kvetches about racial disparity in the recently released Academy Award nominations — a “problem” that has everything to do with what is and isn’t put into production by Hollywood studios, and nothing at all to do with Academy voters — those who anguish about such things will find solace in one direction.

The short subjects categories are, and always have been, a richly international affair.

"Shok"

That’s particularly true with the 2015 nominees, which come from Palestine, Germany, the United Kingdom, Chile, France, Austria, Kosovo, Ireland and even Russia.

In terms of quality and storytelling, the live-action nominees are uniformly excellent. They’re also politically heavy and, in three cases, quite grim and emotionally upsetting: as far as could be imagined from the cotton candy often found in Hollywood features.

I’ve always been drawn to short films, for the same reason that I seek out short stories: Bloated, 800-page novels forgive considerable authorial excess, whereas every single word must be perfect in an 12-page story.

Just as every frame must count, in a 12-minute short film.

The jewel in this year’s live action quintet is director Basil Khalil’s Ave Maria, which takes an unexpectedly light-hearted look at one of the world’s worst geo-political hot spots. The story opens on the silent routine of five Palestinian nuns who live in a convent in the West Bank wilderness; their worship is interrupted by the arrival of a nervous Israeli settler family, whose car breaks down just outside the convent door.

A potentially tense situation — the elder Israeli woman immediately fears being killed — is stressed further by the Sabbath’s arrival, at which point the nuns are forbidden speech.

It’s difficult to imagine anybody successfully mining a gentle comedy from this premise, but that’s precisely what Khalil has accomplished. (He co-wrote the droll script with Daniel Yáñez Khalil.) The narrative moves in a marvelous direction, in great part due to the unexpectedly resourceful involvement of young Sister Marie (Maria Zriek).

It’s a perfect little package, right up to the final scene. And, let it be said, richly enlightening.