FIn Theaters January 29th and On Demand February 23rd
Here is the list of theaters and locations.
How to watch On Demand
After viewing all or most of the short films up for the Oscar this year it suddenly occurred to me that whatever branch decides them is really on the ball. They are far superior, I’d wager, to any other branch in the Academy. Their choices are far from lazy and their selections take the viewer all over the world to meet people and hear stories they’d never otherwise get to hear, especially if they relied on the other branches of the Academy to show them. Far from being “all white,” these stories feature subjects of all genders and ethnicities facing unimaginable challenges. Few nominees move me more emotionally than these shorts. It was hard work seeking them out. I contacted publicists, tracked down leads. I felt like Rachel McAdams’ Sacha in Spotlight. But now, you lucky people have a chance to see these gems on your own. Really, I can’t recommend them highly enough — all three categories — Live Action Short, Doc Short and Animated Short. The inventive filmmaking, the thoughtful storytelling, the high ambition, sometimes the low tech, the cinematography, the writing, the acting, the directing — this is how the Academy, along with its preservation work, soars in its most underrated way. That they have been nominating and awarding shorts since the 1930s and ’40s is to their credit.
List of films after the jump.
LIVE ACTION
AVE MARIA
Country of origin: France | Germany | Palestine
Language: Arabic | English | Hebrew
Directed by: Basil Khalil and Eric Dupont
TRT: 15
Five nuns living in the West Bank find their routine disrupted when the car of a family of Israeli settlers breaks down outside the convent. Unable to use the telephone due to Sabbath restrictions, the family needs help from the nuns, but the sisters’ vow of silence requires them to work around the obstacles with their visitors to find an unorthodox solution.
DAY ONE
Country of origin: United States
Language: English | Dari
Directed by: Henry Hughes
TRT: 25
On the heels of a painful divorce, an Afghan-American woman joins the U.S. military as an interpreter and is sent to Afghanistan. On her first mission, she accompanies troops pursuing a bomb-maker, and must bridge the gender and culture gap to help the man’s pregnant wife when she goes into labor.
EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY (ALLES WIRD GUT)
Country of origin: Germany | Austria
Language: German
Directed by: Patrick Vollrath
TRT: 30
Michael, a divorced father devoted to his eight-year-old daughter, Lea, picks her up for their usual weekend together. At first it feels like a normal visit, but Lea soon realizes that something is different, and so begins a fateful journey.
SHOK
Country of origin: United Kingdom | Kosovo
Language: Albanian | Serbian
Directed by: Jamie Donoughue
TRT: 21
In Kosovo in 1998, two young boys are best friends living normal lives, but as war engulfs their country, their daily existence becomes filled with violence and fear. Soon the choices they make threaten not only their friendship, but their families and their lives.
STUTTERER
Country of origin: United Kingdom
Language: English
Directed by: Benjamin Cleary and Serena Armitage
TRT: 12
For a lonely typographer, an online relationship has provided a much-needed person-to-person connection without revealing the speech impediment that has kept him isolated. Now, however, he is faced with the proposition of meeting his online paramour in the flesh, and thereby revealing the truth about himself.
ANIMATION
BEAR STORY
Country of origin: Chile
Directed by: Gabriel Osorio and Pato Escala
TRT: 11
Every day, a melancholy old bear takes a mechanical diorama that he has created out to his street corner. For a coin, passersby can look into the peephole of his invention, which tells the story of a circus bear who longs to escape and return to the family from which he was taken.
PROLOGUE
Country of origin: United Kingdom
Language: English
Directed by: Richard Williams and Imogen Sutton
TRT: 6
2,400 years ago, four warriors — two Spartan and two Athenian — battle to the death in an intense struggle witnessed by a little girl, who then runs to her grandmother for comfort.
SANJAY’S SUPER TEAM
Country of origin: United States
Language: English
Directed by: Sanjay Patel and Nicole Grindle
TRT: 7
Based on the director’s own imaginative experience as a child, Sanjay’s Super Team recreates with dream-like intensity his own interpretation of Hindu gods as superheroes, as a way to reconcile what he saw of the modern world with old-fashioned religious lessons taught by his father’s traditions.
WE CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT COSMOS
Country of origin: Russia
Directed by: Konstantin Bronzit
TRT: 16
Two best friends have dreamed since childhood of becoming cosmonauts, and together they endure the rigors of training and public scrutiny, and make the sacrifices necessary to achieve their shared goal.
WORLD OF TOMORROW
Country of origin: United States
Language: English
Directed by: Don Hertzfeldt
TRT: 17
A little girl named Emily is taken on a fantastical tour of her distant future by a surprising visitor who reveals unnerving secrets about humanity’s fate.
DOCUMENTARY
BODY TEAM 12
Country of origin: Liberia
Language: English
Directed by: David Darg and Bryn Mooser
TRT: 13
In Monrovia, Liberia, Garmai Sumo is the only female member of Body Team 12, one of the many teams collecting the bodies of those who died from Ebola during the height of the 2014 outbreak. Despite the perilous nature of her job and the distrust with which she is often met, Garmai remains dedicated to her work.
CHAU, BEYOND THE LINES
Country of origin: United States | Vietnam
Language: Vietnamese
Directed by: Courtney Marsh and Jerry Franck
TRT: 34
Chau, a teenager living in a Vietnamese care center for children born with birth defects caused by Agent Orange, struggles with the difficulties of realizing his dream to become a professional artist and clothing designer. Despite being told that his ambitions are unrealistic, Chau is determined to live an independent, productive life.
CLAUDE LANZMANN: SPECTRES OF THE SHOAH
Country of origin: Canada | United States | United Kingdom
Language: French
Directed by: Adam Benzine
TRT: 40
Thirty years after the release of the documentary SHOAH, filmmaker Claude Lanzmann discusses the personal and professional difficulties he encountered during the more than 12 years it took to create the work. Lanzmann also discusses his relationships with Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, and his teenage years spent fighting in the French Resistance during World War II.
A GIRL IN THE RIVER: THE PRICE OF FORGIVENESS
Country of origin: Pakistan
Language: Panjabi
Directed by: Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
TRT: 40
Every year, more than 1,000 girls and women are the victims of religiously motivated honor killings in Pakistan, especially in rural areas. Eighteen-year-old Saba, who fell in love and eloped, was targeted by her father and uncle but survived to tell her story.
LAST DAY OF FREEDOM
Country of origin: United States
Language: English
Directed by: Dee Hibbert-Jones and Nomi Talisman
TRT: 32
When Bill Babbitt realized that his brother Manny had committed a crime, he agonized over the decision to call the police, knowing that Manny could face the death penalty but hoping he would instead receive the help he needed. Manny, an African-American veteran who served two tours in Vietnam, suffered from PTSD and had found it difficult to obtain healthcare.
