The creative teams behind seven Oscar-nominated shorts participated in Thewrap’s screening series On Monday, where filmmakers discussed their work for the 97th annual Academy Awards on March 2. Two exhibitions-Live-action/documentary shorts and animated shorts was maintained at Culver Theater in Culver City, California, with both Q&A sessions moderated by Thewrap’s Executive editor for awards, Steve Pond.
The first showcase celebrated three nominated movies in live-action and documentary shorts categories.
“I’m not a robot” (live-action short) follows a music producer who questions whether she is a robot after failing with CAPTCHA test. “It started as a fun thought, but then my imagination took a darker turn and I really began to wonder,” said director Victoria Warmerdam. “I was really fascinated by the” Truman Show “aspects because for some reason I am so scared that one day will tell me the world is not what I thought it was.”
Trent, a (a name) producer on the card, added that he was fascinated by Warmerdam’s vision and “absurd way of thinking” and immediately wanted to bring the project in effect.
“The Last Ranger” (Documentary Short), the second film in the anthology series “When the World Stoped”, centers on Thandi, a South African rhino that survives a brutal attack and the people struggling to save her life. Producer Darwin Shaw said it took eight months to make the script clear with author David Lee, who recommended his sister, Cindy Lee, to direct it.
“It’s really about hope and it’s about a society – trying to get them excited, trying to engage them so they can do something positive,” Lee said.
Another DOC card, “Incident”, uses bodycam and surveillance films to reconstruct the death shooting 2018 by barber Harith “Snoop” Augustus by Chicago police Dillan Halley and the immediate aftermath. (A judge decided in favor of the police in 2023 in an unfair death suit that was submitted by Augustus family.) It was important to director Bill Morrison that he told the story by using only pictures released by the police and captured by surrounding companies.
“It was the parameters,” he said about his 30-minute movie, leaving that “everyone (the pictures) had been made available to the public and that I would not add a storyteller, a talking head or music-as you can tell the story and look In the pictures and then think about why the police went off.
The second exhibition illuminated four nominated films in the animated shorts category.
Based on a beloved Korean children’s book of the same name, they revolve the CG-animated “Magic Candies” around a young boy who, after eating magical sweets, is given the ability to communicate with animals and lifeless objects.
“It’s a very beautiful, impressive story to me,” said producer Takashi Washio about the Japanese short directed by Daisuke Nishio. “We thought we really needed to respect the feeling of the protagonist, Dong-Dong. And there are also many cultural differences between Korea and Japan, so we didn’t want to lose the realistic feeling that we can actually deliver through this movie. “
Stop Motion-animated “Wander to Wonder” focuses on a trio of small artists from a child’s TV show when they navigate in life after the show’s creator was killed. Director/producer Nina Gantz was found to identify with themes that were explored in the film.
“It has a pretty personal experience for me, because while I wrote the last version of the script, I actually took care of someone who needed palliative care, and when he died I saw around me that everyone reacted to his death in a completely different way , “Said the filmmaker. “Everyone experiences grief in very different ways, and it got into the film, even though I was not really aware of it.”
The French animated short “Yuck!” Follows a young boy named Leo who pretends to be disgusted with the idea of kissing but secretly wants to try it. Director Loïc Espuche recalled another short film he had done – this one about a soldier who went to war, who kisses his fiancé Goodbye – to a theater full of children; Their visceral reaction to the kiss led to the idea for this card.
“All the children in the audience began to say: ‘Oh yes, they will kiss. Oh no, we can’t look at it! “That’s when I said,” Wow, I absolutely have to make a movie about kissing and the reaction it provokes for children. ” “Producer Juliette Marquet credited the prerequisite as” Universal. “
“In The Shadow of the Cypress,” says an Iranian animated card directed and produced by Hossein Molayemia and Shirin Sohani, the story of a former captain suffering from PTSD who lives with his daughter in an isolated home by the sea.
“We wanted to tell a story about a parent and his or her children and that was just that,” said Sohani, who shared that she and molemia dug deep into their own relationships with their fathers for inspiration. “A little after a little, we developed the scenario and we spend a lot of time for this story. We found out that the character of the film, the father’s behavior is similar to someone suffering from trauma. We searched a lot about it and in addition, many personal experiences in our lives had a lot of impact unconscious. ”
Look at the entire conversation Live Live-Action/Documentary Shorts here.
Look at the entire animated shorts conversation here.
