2017 Oscar Nominated Short Animation and Live Action Films: Something for everyone

The 2017 Oscar Nominated Short Films include documentaries, animation and live action. Each category includes five notable short films. This year, the documentary and live action categories are very strong, but the animation category…well, not so strong. Great animation films are truly art. They not only deliver strong narratives and plots, but they do so with masterful craft and imagination that flows on screen like magic. In this year’s short list, the three worth seeing are all under 10 minutes. They are:

Borrowed Time

USA/7 minutes/2015

Directors: Andrew Coats and Lou Hamou-Lhadj

Everyone makes mistakes, but sometimes these mistakes are heartbreaking. In Borrowed Time a lamenting sheriff comes full circle with tragic events from his childhood to find closure and perhaps even forgiveness. Andrew Coats and Lou Hamou-Lhadj deliver a complex story in the most exciting seven minutes ever.

Blind Vaysha

Canada/8 minutes/2016

Director: Theodore Ushev

Bllind Vaysha is based on the short story of the same title by Bulgarian poet and writer, Georgi Gospodinov. Director Ushev does a wonderful job at capturing the rhythmic narrative in the original story, as well as the angst of the author’s experience growing up in Eastern Europe at a time of sharp political shifts. *Blind Vaysha* reflects the torment of someone who can see in both directions–past and future, but not the present. What is a person to do?

Piper

USA/6 minutes/2016

Director: Alan Barillaro

If viewers have seen Finding Dory then they have seen Piper, a small film with big backing from Pixar. Piper is about a very hungry sandpiper chick learning to fend for itself… It’s adorable!

The Oscar Live Action short film category for 2017 is the strongest of all this year, delivering consistent high caliber writing, acting and directing. The category is thematically very broad, so viewers can expect to experience a wide range of emotions, from anguish over the extreme vetting of immigrants, to compassion wrapped up in complicated love stories, to sheer delight and laughter. The five nominees are:

ENNEMIS INTÉRIEURS/Enemies Within

France/28 minutes/2016

Director: Sélim Aazzazi

Director Sélim Aazzazi’s film depicts a Kafkaesque interview between an Algerian-born immigrant and the police bureaucrat across the table. The ethical lines are easily blurred between process and end result. In an era in which distrust is furthered by global leaders, it’s very easy for bureaucrats to become petit tyrants, and very difficult for the powerless to resist. The film sheds light on dynamics that have been in place as the colonial power structures collapsed with time and have left the colonizers and colonized with unbreakable bonds between them, for better or for worse. The past can’t be erased any more than the interdependence between nations and continents, so when colonized people look colonial powers in the eye and demand that their humanity is recognized, it’s usually the colonizing power that reels at having to yield.

La Femme at le TGV

Switzerland/30 minutes/2016

Director: Timo von Gunten

The very talented actress, Jane Birkin plays Elise Lafontaine, a woman whose life has gotten smaller with time. She leads a fragile existence held together by routine. The key to her routine is a standing date with the TGV, the train that passes by her house twice a day. She has been waving a flag to it twice a day for decades like clockwork. Then one day, things begin to chance, Elise discovers that her waving has not gone unnoticed and has formed part of the train conductor’s routine and expectations, and so they start a conversation through letters and messages thrown from the speeding train. This is followed by the abrupt suspension of the train line, throwing Elise’s life for a very much needed spin in a different direction. The story, although based on true events, is very predictable and easily forgettable, even if Birkin delivers a compelling character sketch.

Silent Nights

Denmark/30 minutes/2016

Director: Aske Bang

Love, it’s complicated. Also, the grass only looks greener on the other side, it never really is—these are the takeaways in Aske Bang’s Silent Nights. The film tells the story of Inger and Kwame who find each other and fall in love. They come from different worlds and bring different experiences and secrets to their life together. As an undocumented immigrant, Kwame does what he has to fulfill familial obligations while at the same time allowing himself to start over in Denmark with Inger, but reality has a funny way of catching up with both of them. The film does not shy away from dismissing illusions about Denmark as a promised land for immigrants or Danes alike.

Sing/Mindenki

Hungary/25 minutes/2016

Director: Kristof Deák

Kids will be kids, and thank goodness for that. *Sing* is based on a true story about an award-winning middle school choir in 1990s post-socialist Budapest, Hungary. Kristof Deák focuses his lens on the story of Zsofi, the new girl in school who is excited about joining the choir for the sheer joy of singing. According to headmaster, everyone is included and welcomed in the choir, but Zsofi finds this isn’t exactly true, and what’s important for the kids is not what’s important for the choir director. Mum's the word for Zsofi and others until her friend finds out what is really going on and then the kids come up with a brilliant plan. The plan has it all, grace, charm and humor. If all kids are like the ones in Sing, then a great future lies ahead.

Timecode

Spain/15 minutes/2016

Director: Juanjo Giménez Peña

Timecode is as close to perfect as one gets in a short film category. The unassuming film is filled with twists, turns and moves that are charming and carefully choreographed to deliver what appears to be a simple story. The plot is this, Luna and Diego are the parking lot security guards. Diego does the night shift, and Luna works by day. That’s it. But, it’s what is hidden in the timecode messages that go back and forth that is the real story. It all makes sense, through and through, and what was a quiet and inconspicuous story between the attendants, turns out to be a sublime story that will have viewers in stitches.

Showtimes:

- Art House-

Monday, 2/20

8:00 pm

Run time: 2:00 h

Movie Rating: Not rated.