Oscar Nominated Shorts: Animation

A western was actually nominated for an Oscar this year. Granted, it is more existential and revisionist than an old school shoot-up, but oater fans should take what they can get. It also happens to be animated—and quite good. In fact, the animated fields, feature and short, are both pretty strong this year. Without question, the animated short film nominees are the strongest of the Academy Award nominated short film programs, which open today in Los Angeles.

With its nomination, Andrew Coats & Lou Hamou-Lhadj’s Borrowed Time maintained the Brooklyn Film Festival’s record as an Oscar bellwether for shorts. It is moody, but the Old West could get that way. Coats & Hamou-Lhadj tell a relatively simple story, but the emotions are complex. Borrowed unfolds like a memory play as the wiry old sheriff revisits the scene of his predecessor father’s death years ago. The CGI figures are quite expressive and perfectly evoke the archetypes of the Old West. Indeed, the animation looks terrific, in genre-appropriate kind of way.

In terms of genre, Alan Barillaro’s Pixar-produced Piper is like a short animated Disney nature movie. It is pleasant enough, but instantly forgotten.

In contrast, Patrick Osborne’s Pearl really goes for the emotional crescendo. Somewhat high-concepty, it documents a musical father-daughter relationship from the backseat of the family car that was once their family home. Although it is guaranteed to be a crowd-pleaser, Osborne rapidly-edited mastercut conception can feel a bit forced, but he still wraps on a genuine grace note.

Arguably, Theodore Ushev’s National Film Board of Canada-supported Blind Vaysha is probably the most ambitious nominee, in both aesthetic and thematic terms. The Bulgarian-born Ushev adapts a short story by Bulgarian poet Georgi Gospodinov in a bold animation style that evokes the look and feel of wood-cuts. The title character is not exactly blind, but it is almost impossible for her to function in our world. Through one eye, she only sees the past, while through the other she only sees the future. It is a parable with real bite, yet it does not lend itself to simplistic, reductive readings based on the twenty-four-hour news cycle.

Happily, the longest nominee, is also the best, by a country mile. Robert Valley’s Pear Cider and Cigarettes (trailer here) is sort of a funky exploitation organ transplant drama, but it pays off emotionally in a big way. Valley’s best friend Techno Stypes was always cool and dangerous in high school, but a series of health crises has withered his body and yellowed his skin. In need of a liver transplant, Stypes has decamped to China, where he is waiting for a matching political prisoner to be executed. This rather troubles Valley, but not Stypes.

Stylistically, Cider is wickedly cool, featuring a film noir sensibility and suggesting the influence of pin-up art, at least with respect to the female characters. It also sounds massively groovy, almost like a mix-tape of the funkiest Sound Library cuts, with credit going to associate producer Robert Trujillo & Armand Sabal-Lecco (Mass Mental) and Dave Nuñez (Anitek). As sweet as the soundtrack is, the film will really speak to you if you ever had a friend who opened a lot of social doors for you, but eventually revealed their own human weaknesses.

To round out the program, three shorts that garnered a lot of festival acclaim have also been added to the bill, including Franck Dion’s The Head Vanishes. Essentially, it is an Oliver Sacks-esque fable about an elderly woman suffering from dementia.  Frankly, it is pretty obvious what is up right from the start, but Dion’s animation and visuals are quite striking. He also makes powerful use of a free jazz-ish interlude performed by Akosh S on sax, Edward Perraud on drums, Ludovic Balla on violin, and Pierre Caillet on saw. It is a nice film, executed with sensitivity that is probably more worthy than Piper.

At thirty-five minutes, the energetic and ultra-cinematic Cider alone justifies checking out the animated short nominees, but Borrowed Time, Blind Vaysha, and Head Vanishes also bring a lot to the party. Thanks to their assembled merits, the animated Academy Nominated Shorts program is recommended quite enthusiastically for animation fans and Oscar obsessives. It opens today (2/10) in LA at the Landmark Nuart and is currently playing in New York, at the IFC Center.

2014 Oscar Nominated Live Action Shorts

If you are looking for a unifying theme among this year’s live action short film Oscar nominees, several address the responsibilities of parents and the extent to which the wider society can complement or replace the family unit. Of course, there is also the ringer that cannot be shoehorned into a handy rubric. All five nominees screen as part of the annual showcase of Academy Award nominated shorts, which opens tomorrow at the IFC Center in New York.

Frankly, Sini and Jokke are not bad parents. They are just kind of a mess in Selma Vilhunen’s Do I Have to Take Care of Everything? Nearly over sleeping an important wedding, they still manage to schlep their two young daughters over to the chapel, despite a series of minor disasters. Everything is pleasant and amusing, but only an inch deep and seven minutes long.

In contrast, Esteban Crespo’s That Wasn’t Me seems to expect a round of applause just for dramatizing the child-soldier issue. Married Spanish doctors have come to an African war zone as part of a humanitarian mission, but their safe passage documents do not impress one warlord. The horrific crimes that follow will be done at his behest by young orphans pressed into his so-called army. Discussing his crimes after the fact, one former child-soldier explains how the guerilla commander exploited their need for a sense of family and belonging.

There are scenes in TWM that are genuinely shocking. While it serves as a timely reminder of the appalling lack of human rights throughout the continent, the film feels rather programmatic, like a calculated statement rather than a fully realized drama in its own right.

When it comes to pulling on heartstrings, none of the shorts can compete with Anders Walter’s Helium (trailer here), but it earns its sentiment through honest hard work and artistry. Alfred’s parents are caring and conscientious, but that cannot change the fact he is dying of a terminal disease. His mother constantly tells him he is going to Heaven, but the harps and white robes do not do much for him. Enzo, the clutzy new janitor, has a better conception.

Reminded of his late kid brother, who also shared a love for zeppelins and Jules Vernish hot air balloons, Enzo starts telling Alfred about the world of Helium, a steampunk-Boy’s Life alternative to Heaven. For a while, Enzo’s vision of Helium lifts the boy’s spirits, but his body soon takes a turn for the worse. Helium’s animated fantasyscapes are quite richly rendered, bringing to mind about the only part of the What Dreams May Come movie that actually worked. However, it is the chemistry between Casper Crump, Pelle Falk Krusbæk, and Marijana Jankovic as Enzo, Alfred, and his understanding nurse that really lowers the boom in Helium. Despite the melodramatic aspects, viewers will feel moved rather than manipulated.

There is also some pretty raw emotion in Xavier Legrand’s Just Before Losing Everything (trailer here), which is arguably the best of this year’s live action nominees. Miriam is a battered wife, who has finally decided to leave her husband. However, it will not be a simple matter of walking out the door.  She must bundle up her kids and collect what money she can from the job she must leave behind. Everyone at her Tesco-like superstore is sympathetic, but uncomfortable and unsure how far they can go to help. Then her husband shows up looking for the checkbook.

If Helium boasts the strongest ensemble of this year’s nominations, Losing features the single strongest performance from Léa Drucker as Miriam. We so get all her fear, vulnerability, and misplaced shame. Instead of yelling “look at me,” it is work that hits you in the gut.

As the odd man out, Mark Gill’s BAFTA nominated The Voorman Problem (trailer here) tells a self-consciously clever tale of an emotionally disturbed prison inmate who thinks he is the almighty and the nebbish shrink sent to evaluate him. There is witty bit of business involving Belgium, but the ironic payoff is forced and perfunctory.  Nonetheless, co-star Martin Freeman has helped generate scads of revenue for the industry as Bilbo Baggins in the Hobbit trilogy and Watson in BBC/PBS’s Sherlock, so Voorman might have the inside track with the Academy.

In terms of tone and overall quality, this year’s live action field is less consistent than their animated counterparts. Still, it is well worth seeing for Helium and Just Before Losing Everything, which account for over half the program’s running time. They introduce some international talent worth keeping an eye on. Recommended accordingly, the nominated live action showcase opens tomorrow (1/31) at the IFC Center.

2014 Oscar Nominated Animation Shorts

Was man free in his original state of nature? Are we enslaved by our stuff? Several of this year’s Oscar nominated animation shorts lend themselves to such Rousseauean questions. There is also a Disney Film (not included in the media screenings) to contend with.  Regardless, all five nominees and a few additional short films of note will screen as part of the annual showcase of Academy Award nominated shorts, which opens tomorrow at the IFC Center in New York.

Amid the international field, the clear standout is Shuhei Morita’s Possessions, a lush supernatural fable in the tradition of Kwaidan. It is a dark and stormy night in Eighteenth Century Japan. A weary traveler seeks shelter in shrine, only to find himself in a supernatural repository for broken objects that hold a “grudge.” Fortunately, the man is both handy and spiritually sensitive.

Morita’s richly detailed animation is strikingly elegant, yet it has an appropriate macabre undertone. Possessions evokes scores of classic Japanese movies, but there is also something strangely moving about it. Completely satisfying, it deserves the little gold statuette, but other nominees might be more to the Academy’s tastes.

Clearly, the BBC produced adaptations of Julia Donaldson’s children’s books appeal to many Oscar voters’ sensibilities, since The Gruffalo was nominated in 2011. In the case of Max Lang & Jan Lachauer’s Room on the Broom (trailer here), a witch’s broomstick and the freedom of movement it represents to a swelling menagerie of forest creatures is the object driving the action. Given its wholesome quality animation and brains-over-brawn themes, Broom is likely to be most parents’ favorite of the showcase. It also boasts the strongest celebrity interest, featuring the voice talent of Gillian Anderson, Rob Brydon, and best supporting actress nominee, Sally Hawkins (festival review here).

Parenting is a more problematic proposition in Daniel Sousa’s Feral (trailer here), a dark Kaspar Hauser fable about a boy reintroduced into human society after spending his formative years living with the wolves. Visually, Sousa’s black-and-white animation is starkly powerful, but its extreme stylization keeps viewers at arm’s length emotionally. Nevertheless, it is an accomplished work that should make an impression on animation connoisseurs.

The agoraphobic titular protagonist of Laurent Witz’s Mr. Hublot (co-directed by Alexandre Espigares, trailer here) might also learn something about nurture. Inspired by Belgian sculptor Stephane Halleux’s figures, Hublot lives in a fantastical industrial world, where the living and the mechanical are partially integrated. One fateful day, he takes in an abandoned robotic puppy, but he never expects it to be such a handful. While Witz’s narrative is pretty straight forward and conventional, he (and Espigares) create a wonderfully distinctive environment, with a real lived-in feel.

Frankly, there are no clunkers among the media-friendly nominees. All four are well crafted films, but Room on the Broom is probably the sweetest and most family-appropriate, whereas Possessions is the most rewarding overall. Recommended for Oscar watchers and animation fans, the nominated short film showcase opens tomorrow (1/31) at the IFC Center.

2012 Oscar Nominated Shorts: Documentaries

It was only a matter of months after Katrina hit that a bumper crop of outraged documentaries began jostling for art-house attention. Strangely, almost one year after the devastating Tōhoku earthquake and Tsunami rocked Japan the documentary film industry still maintains nearly complete radio silence. However, filmmaker Lucy Walker recognized the magnitude of the tragic events in Japan, capturing the immediate aftermath and early rebuilding efforts in The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom (trailer here), the clear and overwhelming standout among the Oscar nominated short form documentaries, which opens today as part of the 2012 showcase of Academy Award nominated shorts at the IFC Center.

Blossom opens with first-hand video footage that will make viewers forever foreswear Roland Emmerich disaster movies. From the relative safety of higher ground, residents watch as the tsunami slowly obliterates their town and all their neighbors left behind. Their audible anguish is haunting.

There are many stories from those who lost loved ones. Clearly, the pain remains understandably raw and immediate for them. Yet, there is no finger-pointing or ranting in Blossom. The Japanese people are contradictorily both too practical and too philosophical for such indulgences. Instead they seek to remember and rebuild. Whether it is the beautiful young photographer recording the rebirth of the town destroyed in the initial scene, from that very same vantage point, or the relief worker who always stops to salvage family photos and tombstones, their efforts are profoundly moving.

Directed by Walker, a high profile nonfiction filmmaker, whose perfectly nice and reasonably informative Waste Land was a feature documentary nominee last year, Blossom is considered the frontrunner in this category and rightly so. Saving Face is also part of the program, but has separate publicity arrangements, while God is Bigger than Elvis is not included due to licensing issues.

The remaining contenders simply pale compared to Blossom's impact. Gail Dolgin and Robin Fryday’s The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement is billed as a profile of the late James Armstrong. However, they show no real interest in their ostensive subject, using him only as a prop, or more precisely a mirror to capture Obama’s reflected glory. All we learn about Mr. Armstrong himself is that he participated in many of the great Civil Rights marches and presided over a barber shop filled with artifacts from the era.

Likewise, James Spione’s Incident in New Baghdad is undermined by its ideological blind spots. Former Army Specialist Ethan McCord explains how a complicated skirmish publicized by Wikileaks haunted him since his discharge. It seems an Army Apache helicopter group took out an enemy contingent armed with RPGs and AK-47’s. Soon thereafter, a minivan pulled up and was bombarded in turn. It turns out a young boy and girl were seriously injured inside the vehicle and their father was killed in the driver’s seat. Why he headed towards rather than away from the combat does not seem to intrigue McCord or Spione. However, the tremendous efforts the U.S. military made to successful save both children ought to speak volumes about the moral superiority of our troops and their mission. McCord remains bitter and that is his right. As an indictment though, Incident just does not compute.

Blossom is an important and inspiring film, highly recommended even when programmed with two vastly inferior nominees. With the anniversary of the March 11th earthquake and tsunami fast approaching, it is important to remember the Japanese people in our hearts during what is sure to be a painful time for them. Concerned individuals can still support the Japan Society’s relief fund by going here. Varying greatly in terms of Oscar worthiness, the Academy Award nominated documentary shorts open today (2/10) in New York at the IFC Center.

2012 Oscar Nominated Shorts: Live Action

Last year, Luke Matheny won the best live action short Oscar for God of Love and delivered the best acceptance speech of the night. He had respectable competition for the former but practically none for the latter. This year’s field is also looks relatively competitive, but viewers can judge for themselves when the Academy Award nominated live action shorts program opens this Friday in New York at the IFC Center.

If this year’s Oscar nominated short form animation has a Canadian flavor, the live action shorts have a slight Irish disposition, at least according to some definitions. As it happens, one of the best contenders hails from North Ireland. Regardless of identity issues, Terry George’s The Shore (trailer here) is probably the film to beat. It hardly hurts that George is a highly regarded filmmaker, already twice nominated in screenplay categories. The Shore also stars an actor viewers will recognize: Ciarán Hinds, currently seen in finer theaters as “Soldier” in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

Yes, The Shore addresses the troubles, but not in a polarizing context. Twenty-five years ago, Jim Mahon’s grandfather was spooked by the escalating violence and trundled the young man off to the American relations. He has finally returned with his grown daughter to make peace with his former best friend and the woman he jilted. Although it is more of a drama than a comedy, The Shore has a wry, knowing sensibility that should appeal to popular audiences. Rather than dwell on Belfast’s battle scars, George captures the picturesque landscape of Northern Ireland. One of the great actors of our day, Hinds is perfect as the conflicted Mahon and Kerry Condon is appealingly smart and down to earth as his daughter.

Unfortunately, the proper Irish contender is not nearly as rich. An incompetent choir boy is offered a chance to redeem himself in Peter McDonald’s slight Pentecost. However, the big mass plays out as a childish rebellion fantasy at the expense of the mean old Catholic Church.

Though also relatively short, Andrew Bowler’s genre comedy Time Freak (trailer here) is easily the most entertaining live action nominee. An obsessive scientist has developed a time machine, but his regular guy best friend is alarmed by the self-defeating ways he has been applying his breakthrough. A very funny film, Freak is similar in tone to some of the original Twilight Zone episodes that played it strictly for laughs.

There are not a lot of laughs in Max Zähle’s Raju (trailer here). There are not a lot of surprises where this international adoption morality play is headed either, but it is executed quite well, especially for a student film. Shortly after Jan and Sarah Fischer adopt the title character, he disappears under mysterious circumstances. However, as the German would-be father searches for Raju, he learns troubling facts about Raju’s circumstances. Filmed on the streets of Kolkata (a.k.a. Calcutta), it conveys a sense of the city’s teeming poverty and sets up the protagonists’ ethical dilemma rather effectively.

Another international award winning student film, Hallvar Witzø’s Tuba Atlantic offers an Academy friendly blend of quirk and heart-string pulling. Given exactly six days to live, grouchy old Oskar Svenning sets out to contact his estranged brother in America via the monster tuba they constructed on the shore. Although he stubbornly refuses help, a young Evangelical Christian insists on acting as his “angel of death.” While innocent Inger might sound like a hopeless caricature, Ingrid Viken plays her with a fair degree of innocent charm. Granted, it is unabashedly sentimental, but the unrestrained war Svenning wages against the pesky seagulls is frequently quite amusing.

Either Time Freak or The Shore would be deserving Oscar winners. Both are thoroughly engaging and satisfying films. If not at the same level of accomplishment, Raju and Tuba are certainly perfectly respectable, falling somewhere on the spectrum between good and nice. Altogether, the 2012 live action Oscar nominees are a strong group, mostly recommended as films in their own right as well as for their Academy Award interest. They open this Friday (2/10) in New York at the IFC Center as part of the annual showcase of nominated short films.

2012 Oscar Nominated Shorts: Animation

The Oscar field for best animated short film has a distinctly Canadian flavor this year. After Cordell Barker’s delightful short-listed Runaway fell short of a nomination in 2010, the National Film Board of Canada returned to Academy Award contention this year, netting two nominations for their short animated productions, bringing their grand total nominations to seventy-two in seventy-three years of operation. Both screen as part of the annual showcase of Academy Award nominated shorts, which opens this Friday in New York at the IFC Center.

While nature plays a role in Amanda Forbis & Wendy Tilby’s Wild Life, as well as Patrick Doyon’s Diamanche (Sunday), they also share a weird, off-kilter sensibility. One of the strongest nominees, Wild Life (trailer here) is ostensibly a fish out of water tale about one of the many British ne’er do well gentleman who came to Western Canada to seek their fortunes as ranchers. Most of them made poor cowboys and Wild’s protagonist is no exception. While the culture clash themes are cleverly addressed, there is a subtle undercurrent of David Lynchian menace that really distinguishes the film.

Shifting regions, Quebecois Patrick Doyon tells a relatively simply tale of a young boy, once again enduring his family’s Sunday rituals in Dimanche (trailer here). However, it takes a trippy detour involving a bear. It is strange and somewhat sad, just like childhood.

Perhaps the strongest nominee, coincidentally considered the frontrunner, also has a very strong sense of place, but in this case it is Louisiana. Produced entirely within the state, William Joyce & Brandon Oldenburg’s The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore begins in New Orleans with a scene clearly inspired by the recent hurricanes that have wracked the state. Like many New Orleanians, Morris Lessmore takes refuge, finding a new home in a literal world of books. Employing inventive fairy tale imagery, Flying Books is a sophisticated paean to literature, offering the greatest depth of the animated program.

In contrast, Grant Orchard’s A Morning Stroll (trailer here) is essentially a bit of hipster playfulness, but it is rather funny, depicting the changes wrought on New York City when a chicken takes his titular promenade in 1959, 2009, and 2059. While pleasant, Enrico Casarosa’s La Luna, from Pixar, is a rather standard fable about a young’s boy’s discovery of the family’s fantastical business. Indeed, this just does not seem to be the animation studio’s best year.

Ranging from nice enough to very good, the nominated animated shorts are a solid slate overall, with Flying Books and Wild Life ranking as standouts. In the past, the animated program has been supplemented with several films that made the shortlist, but did not ultimately get one of the five nods. Strangely though, this year instead of shortlisted films, several environmentally themed shorts will play along with the nominees. Frankly, unless the relevant rights were impossible to secure, this dilutes the “Oscar-ness” of the program and diminishes the value of the shortlist status. It also means a visually striking (and viscerally anti-war) film like Damian Nenow’s Paths of Hate was passed over in favor of the clumsily didactic Skylight.

Regardless, films like Flying Books, Wild Life, and Morning Stroll are definitely well worth seeing, especially on a relatively big screen. Recommended for at least four of the real Oscar contenders, the 2012 Academy Award Nominated Short Films open this Friday (2/10) in New York at the IFC Center.

2011 Oscar Nominated Shorts: Documentaries

Between war, terrorism, and environmental degradation, this year’s Oscar nominated short documentaries have a nightmare scenario for just about everyone. However, the better nominees also find hope where they can. For the first year ever, the Academy Award nominated short film road show will also include documentaries, split into two program blocks, both of which open tomorrow in New York at the IFC Center.

Jed Rothstein’s Killing in the Name (trailer here) was born in tragedy. Co-produced by Carie Lemack, whose mother was murdered at the World Trade Center, Name profiles Ashraf Al-Khaled, her fellow terrorism survivor and co-founder of Global Survivors Network. Al-Khaled will tell you Islam is the religion of peace and he has earned the right to say it. On his wedding day, a suicide bomber targeted the Jordanian hotel hosting his reception, killing his father and in-laws. Since then, Al-Khaled has become an outspoken critic of Islamist terrorist, challenging other Muslims to speak out more forcefully. As he reminds them, it is their co-religionists who are most likely to be the victims of their attacks.

While outwardly unassuming, Al-Khaled will boldly confront anyone in his quest to de-radicalize Islam, even “Zaid,” an Al Qaeda recruiter. Not surprisingly, Zaid proves to be a craven coward, refusing to meet Al-Khaled, instead consenting only to answer his questions through Rothstein. Yet, it is not just Al-Qaeda that glorifies wanton killing. The attitudes of children at an Indonesian madrassa are downright chilling. Frankly, Al-Khaled sounds like he is kidding himself when he speaks of planting seeds of doubt in them, but again, he has earned to right to a little self-deception at that point. Though only thirty-nine minutes, Name is easily one of the most illuminating documentary examinations of terrorism to play the festival circuit.

Like Al-Khaled, Zhang Gongli also fights to make the world a safer place. A farmer in Central China, Zhang became a self-taught legal activist, who challenged the chemical plant poisoning his region as well as the local Communist Party authorities which protected it. Aided by an Chinese environmental NGO, Zhang’s struggles are documented in Ruby Yang’s The Warriors of Qiugang (trailer here). Eventually privatized, the serial polluting began while the plant was a state enterprise. Indeed, it was the local Party that first turned a gang of thugs loose on the village in an attempt to intimidate the activists. It would be a strategy the plant would repeat, with the local authorities’ acquiescence.

Though largely compatible with the no-frills observational approach of the so-called Digital Generation of independent Chinese filmmakers, Warriors also features occasional grimly stylized animated sequences. It is a searing indictment of the Chinese government’s hypocrisy, not simply in terms of environmental protection, but even more fundamental human rights. While hardly concluding with everything happily resolved, it is definitely an encouraging David-and-Goliath story.

For inspiration, none of the nominees can compete with Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon’s Strangers No More (trailer here). There is a country where immigrants fleeing war and civil strife finally feel safe enough to allow their children to enroll in school (in many cases for the first time ever). That country is Israel. Yes, the irony is not lost on the teachers of Tel Aviv’s Bialik-Rogozin school, where students from forty-eight countries find a safe harbor every day. Focusing on students from Ethiopia and Sudan, we see Bialik-Rogozin’s Hebrew immersion strategy pay dramatic dividends. Clearly, what they do at that school works. Though Goodman and Simon avoid making the obvious point, it is worth noting you will not find a comparable institution anywhere else in the region.

Inspiring and disturbing in equal measure, Name and Warriors are excellent films, highly recommended in any context. They play together as part of Program A, along with Jennifer Redfearn’s Sun Come Up. Following a group of South Pacific Islanders who must relocate due to rising sea levels, reportedly the result of global warming, Redfearn wisely does not overplay the environmental card. While it raises a few interesting anthropological-sociological issues, ultimately Sun’s POV figures simply are not as compelling as those of the other nominees.

Strangers is a totally grounded, legitimately feel-good movie, also enthusiastically recommended. Unfortunately, it plays with Sara Nesson’s Poster Girl, a film top-heavy with the director’s agenda. Neeson profiles Sergeant Robynn Murray, who was once on the cover of ARMY magazine, thus making her the “poster girl” for the war, at least if you were a serviceman or retiree who saw the magazine and somehow still remembers it. While Nesson’s approach borders on the exploitative, it is certainly heartrending to watch as Murray learns first-hand how problematic government-run healthcare truly is. (In contrast, the Renaud Brothers’ Warrior Champions stands as example of how to sensitively address PTSD, without turning it into a political football.)

Three out of five is pretty good by Oscar standards. Indeed, Name, Warriors, and Strangers each provide real insight into the state of the world and a small measure of hope that average people can have a constructive impact on big macro-level problems. Both Oscar nominated documentary short programs open tomorrow (2/11) in New York at the IFC Center.

Oscar Shortlist: China’s Unnatural Disaster

If revolution ever comes to China, it will probably start in Sichuan Province. That is because there are roughly twenty thousand parents there whose anger will not be bought off or otherwise placated without real justice. Such is the impression left by a recent HBO-produced documentary about the Chinese government’s maddening response to the “Great Sichuan Earthquake” of 2008. Recently, the Academy winnowed this year’s Oscar eligible short-form documentaries down to a shortlist of eight films. While most of the list is basically “eh,” Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill’s China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province (pop-up trailer here) deserves special consideration for a nomination and ultimately the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject.

Approximately 70,000 people died in the earthquake that rocked Sichuan, of which an estimated 10,000 were children. While the quake wrecked destruction throughout the province, schools and dormitories were particularly hard hit. In the immediate aftermath, shoddy government construction practices, like support walls made of loose bricks without any cohesive mortar, were apparent to even to the untrained eye. Parents wanted answers but were met with stonewalling by the local government and Communist Party.

It is always heartbreaking when a parent looses a young child, but the pain of the Sichuan parents runs even deeper, because of the Communist government’s rigid one-child policy. Those parents mourn not just a son or daughter, but their one sanctioned child.

At times, Disaster frankly feels intrusive as directors-cinematographers Alpert and O’Neill film the raw grief of the parents. However, the filmmakers bear witness to the injustice of the local authorities’ corruption and the courage of common people seeking justice. They name names too, like Party Secretary Jiang Guohua, seen literally trying to run to the front of the parade when Sichuan parents set off on a protest march.

The film is also an instructive look at all the Party’s methods for suppressing dissent, including telling attempts at outright intimidation. In fact, Alpert and O’Neill had their cameras cupped and were apparently physically jostled by Party enforcers several times. Clearly, the Communists were not keen to have a record of their response to the Sichuan protestors.

Disaster is a worthy and legitimate act of cinematic journalism. Though classified as a “short,” it is still a relatively substantial thirty-eight minutes in length. It will make viewers both profoundly sad and deeply angry. It is the class of the shortlisted documentary shorts. Disaster airs again on HBO in January and ought to be screening with other eventual nominees in the run up to the Award ceremony.

Nominated Short: New Boy

His entire so-called Barrytown Trilogy has been adapted into the well received films: The Commitments, The Snapper, and The Van, the first directed by Alan Parker and the latter two by Stephen Frears. Yet, the latest cinematic adaptation of Roddy Doyle’s work has been seen by relatively few people, despite receiving an Academy Award nomination. That is because it is a dreaded short subject, one of those unheralded awards that are dispensed with early in the Oscar broadcast. At least two of those nominated shorts this year are in fact quite good, including writer-director Steph Green’s New Boy, based on a Doyle short story, now playing at the IFC Film Center as part of the package of Oscar nominated live-action shorts.

It is young Joseph’s first day in a new school and it is conspicuously obvious he is not Irish. Derisively called “Live Aid” by one of the school’s Hellions, he is clearly in for a long day. On the plus side, the feisty class brain, Hazel O’Hara, clearly takes a real shine to him. In between class-work and standing up to bullies, Joseph flashes back to his tragic final days in Africa, when the war and strife of the outside world roughly intrudes into the loving shelter of his school.

Olutunji Ebun-Cole and Sinead Maguire display enormous screen charisma, as Joseph and Hazel respectively. Spending an entire feature-length film with them might be enough to induce diabetes, but in New Boy’s brief but effective eleven minutes, their sweet charm is undeniable. While the characters of Joseph’s would-be tormentors and clueless new teacher are not nearly as sharply drawn, New Boy’s brevity probably necessitates a certain reliance on stock characters.

Cinematographer P.J. Dillon’s rich, warm visual style serves the heartfelt film quite well, particularly during the light saturated flashback scenes. Although the narrative does not really hold any earth-shattering surprises, the final payoff is reasonably satisfying. The real attraction in New Boy though is its winning lead performance from Ebun-Cole and Maguire’s endearing supporting turn. It screens as part of the nominated shorts package playing at the IFC Film Center and at various Academy sponsored events leading up to the February 22nd awards broadcast.