They’re seen as the ballot breakers in everyone’s Oscar pool: the short film categories. Awarding the best in short form animation, documentary, and live action, the three short film categories are always fun to observe and watch. Quite often, there will be shorts in these categories from established filmmakers with big name stars. Sometimes there will be films in these categories from filmmakers about to move on to bigger and better things, and viewers will first learn about them from their inclusion here.
No sense in wondering why certain films were omitted from these nominations or offering other suggestions. While we watch a lot more shorts than most people, we certainly didn’t see as many as the people who come up with the Oscar shortlists. So let’s just dive into these categories and give our thoughts.
And be sure to check out our look at every other Oscar category thus far: Cinematography/Editing/Direction, Animated/Documentary/International Features, Supporting Actor and Actress, Costuming and Production Design, Adapted and Original Screenplays, Best Score and Song, and Make-up and Hairstyling/Visual Effects/Sound.
Best Live Action Short
Nominees
A Lien – David and Sam Cutler-Kreutz
Anuja – Adam J. Graves
I’m Not a Robot – Victoria Warmerdam
The Last Ranger – Cindy Lee
The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent – Nebojsa Slijpcevic
A lot of weighty issues run through the nominees of the Best Live Action Short category this year. Four out of five of them end with messages from the filmmakers that seek to further conversations about the topics discussed. The only one that doesn’t is Victoria Warmerdam’s dark comedy I’m Not a Robot, which is the story of an office worker at a recording company (Ellen Parren) whose life spins rapidly out of after failing one of those pesky CAPTCHA tests. It’s a quickly paced, amusing, philosophically rich piece of work, but falls a bit short at the end.
All the rest are serious socially conscious works. The Last Ranger is the story of a young African girl (Liyabona Mroqoza) who takes a tour of a wildlife refuge with a kindly park ranger (Avumile Qongqo), only to cross paths with some violent rhino horn poachers. Cindy Lee’s work on the film starts sweet and gorgeous, but turns violently bleak and offers a heartbreaking (but somewhat predictable) twist.
In A Lien, parents with their young kid in tow race to get the husband legal status in the United States, only to be met by ICE agents waiting to round people up and take them into custody. Written and directed by the duo of David and Sam Cutler-Kreutz, A Lien isn’t a subtle movie by any stretch, but it’s certainly thrilling to watch, with some top notch editing and great performance from Victoria Ratermanis and William Martinez in the leads. It’s certainly timely, and feels like something that could’ve been filmed the same day the viewer is watching it.
The titular nine year old girl in Adam J. Graves’ Anuja (Sajda Pathan, herself a kid that grew up on the streets) is an impoverished math whiz working in a New Delhi garment factory alongside her older sister. When an opportunity to attend a private boarding school arises at the same time her exploitative boss offers her a promotion and raise, she has to choose where the future will lead her. Of the nominees, Anuja is the most accomplished from a filmmaking standpoint, and it tells a complex story from a unique point of view. It should be considered a major frontrunner in this category.
My personal favourite of the bunch and equally a top contender is Nebojsa Slijpcevic period drama The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent. Set in 1993 at the height of tensions in the former republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a train is stopped by a right wing militia looking to round up Muslims and undocumented peoples. Dragan (Goran Bogdan), a man travelling with his family, tries to console Milan (Silvio Mumelas), a person without status who nervously awaits the troops’ arrival to their cabin. While Dragan says he’s willing to protect Milan, he wavers, and instead an older gentleman in their cabin (Tomo Buzov) decides to stand up and take charge. While Slijpcevic creates an intense scene that’s rich in history and cultural specificity, it’s also up there with A Lien in terms of being the most timely and widely relevant movie in the category. It’s very moving and worthy of a look by The Academy. It’s the one I am most pulling for, but a win for Anuja would also be well deserved.
Best Documentary Short
Nominees
Death by Numbers – Kim A. Snyder
I Am Ready Warden – Smriti Mundhra
Incident – Bill Morrison
Instruments of a Beating Heart – Ema Ryan Yamazaki
The Only Girl in the Orchestra – Erin O’Brien
There’s a lot of heaviness in the Best Documentary Short category, but that’s not too surprising given the medium and general state of the world. Three of these shorts – Death by Numbers, I Am Ready Warden, and Incident – deal with violent crime, and two of them with the death penalty.
In Death by Numbers, filmmaker Kim A Snyder looks at the trial and sentencing of the Parkland school shooter through the eyes of Sam Fuentes, one of the surviving victims of the attack. Through a first hand interview with Sam and the use of her journals as a storytelling device, it becomes clear that Sam – who has been chosen to deliver a victim impact statement during sentencing – doesn’t believe that sentencing her attacker to death will solve much of anything. If the guy lives, it’s bad. If the guy is put to death, it’s still just as bad. Her questioning about how much closure the trial and sentencing will give to victims and families is interesting, but a bit too much of this focuses on the nuts and bolts of the hearings. An attempt to connect the shooter’s alt-right beliefs to the holocaust education that Sam was learning at the time is interesting, but most of this doc feels frustratingly basic.
I Am Ready Warden looks at the death penalty as a foregone conclusion for a convicted murderer and the surviving son of his victim. John Henry Ramirez has exhausted all of his appeals when it comes to overturning his death sentence in Texas, the judgment passed after he murdered a convenience store clerk in Corpus Christi in 2004. One of the last things Ramirez wants to do is reach out to his victim’s adult son, Aaron Castro, not to seek forgiveness, but to let him know that he takes full responsibility for his actions. There’s a lot in here about county D.A. Mark Gonzalez trying to abolish the death penalty and stopping Ramirez’s execution, but the most wrenching stuff in director Smriti Mundhra’s film comes from watching how the prisoner is at peace and the victim’s son is confused about what he should think. It’s quite moving, especially the conclusion, which is an unfiltered release of emotional weight.
Bill Morrison’s Incident is an intriguingly assembled and journalistically ambitious look back at a officer involved shooting on Chicago’s south side on July 14, 2018 that left barber and father Harith Augustus dead. Pieced together from surveillance footage, dashboard cameras, officer mounted body cams, and cell phones, Incident shows in graphic detail a white officer shooting a black victim multiple times. The officer, a rookie, says Augustus opened fire on a gathering of cops with a concealed weapon (that the victim had a permit for under Illinois law). The footage tells a completely different story, and shows a very poor and obvious covering up of the facts, which would’ve come to light anyway thanks to a law stating that all captured footage from such incidents would become public record a month after they happened. It’s a sickening indictment of a broken policing system that rewards recklessness. And it’s not for the faint of heart, because when Morrison deftly switches to a split screen technique to show people in different places at the same time, an eye is always turned to Augustus’ lifeless body lying dead in the street. Tough, but urgent stuff.
The other two docs nominated revolve around music, but one has a tougher approach than the other. The more “brutal” of the two just so happens to be about kids. In Ema Ryan Yamazaki’s Instruments of a Beating Heart, a group of first graders in a Japanese school about to finish off the year are tasked with performing “Ode to Joy” for the incoming kids just starting their journey. Yamazaki focuses their camera on Ayame, a kind and sensitive young girl who landed the role of cymbal player. Everyone else in the cobbled together orchestra has been practicing, but their sensei keeps singling Ayame out for not knowing her part. Instruments of a Beating Heart is interesting in its depiction of the way adults will always tell children to keep trying their best, but then show frustration when they don’t live up to high expectations. It feels higher stakes to watch than it sounds on paper.
And in the very nice and charming The Only Girl in the Orchestra, director Erin O’Brien looks back on the life and career of her oldest (and actually only) living relative, classically trained double bassist Orin O’Brien. The elder O’Brien, who was the daughter of two bonafide matinee idols, made a name for herself as the first woman ever hired to play in the venerable New York Philharmonic, conducted at the time by the legendary Leonard Bernstein. Although still active as a teacher, Orin is gearing up for retirement at the end of a fifty-five year career performing. Erin O’Brien clearly loves being around Orin, and the feeling seems mutual, as they look back together on the sexism she faced upon joining the philharmonic (especially in the unkind press) and the impact she’s had on others. It’s not a challenging movie, but it’s a nice one.
If the Academy wants to pick a feel good movie here that could be a balm in harsher times, don’t be surprised to see The Only Girl in the Orchestra taking home the gold. I think, however, the weighty nature and unique perspective of I Am Ready, Warden will be the winner. Deep down, I am rooting for Incident. But all of these are films of considerable merit.
Best Animated Short Film
Nominees
Beautiful Men – Nicolas Keppens
In the Shadow of the Cypress – Hossein Molayemi and Shirin Sohani
Magic Candies – Daisuke Nishio
Wander to Wonder – Nina Gantz
Yuck! – Loic Espuche
In Nicolas Keppens’ tragicomic stop-motion Beautiful Men, a trio of bald brothers make their way to a hair transplant facility in Istanbul, hoping for a much needed dose of self-esteem, only to learn that there’s only one slot available. Character oriented and indebted to the likes of Charlie Kaufman, this one is both touching and uncomfortably hilarious. One of two animated films this year to feature unexpected bursts of full frontal male nudity.
The other to feature a bottomless bloke is Nina Gantz’s much darker, but equally moving and thoughtful stop-motion short Wander to Wonder, in which three diminutive stars of an 80s children’s television show (voiced by Amanda Lawrence, Toby Jones, and Terrence Dunn) are left to survive on their own following the death of their caretaker and creator. It’s quirky and starts off amusing, but quickly grows bleak and ends up being a disarmingly smart look at obsolescence. This is the one I most want to win, but it’s definitely an outsider choice.
Loic Espuche’s Yuck! is a relatable and amusing look at a point in a young person’s life when they transition from thinking physical affection is gross and deciding that they might want some of that in their lives, all told through the point of view of a young boy who suddenly gets the urge to try kissing. It’s a small film, but one that a lot of people can see themselves in.
Daisuke Nishio’s whimsical Magic Candies would make a lovely feature, and it’s the short film across all three categories I would most like to see converted into something longer. Lonely boy Japanese boy Dong-Dong (voiced by Haruto Shima) finds he’s able to communicate with the world around him in strange new ways with the help of some odd looking candies. It has a lovely message about looking at things from deeper perspectives as you grow older.
I think the favourite to win here is the crisply drawn, and highly detailed In the Shadow of the Cypress, from Iranian filmmakers Hossein Molayemi and Shirin Sohani. In a highly artistic fashion, this one tells the story of a retired sea captain suffering from PTSD and his struggling daughter trying to save the life of a whale that has beached itself outside their costal home. A thoughtful meditation on the ways people blame themselves for failures beyond their control and how hard it can be to move onward, this is a truly lovely and beautiful piece of work.
The Oscar Nominated Short Films are now playing in select cinemas, shown in packages by category. Anuja and The Only Girl in the Orchestra are now streaming on Netflix. I Am Ready, Warden is now streaming on Paramount+. Incident and Instruments of a Beating Heart are both available on YouTube.
