Jack’s Award Focus: And the Animated Short Film Contenders Are…
Room on the Broom, based on the children’s book
Ten animated short films have been narrowed down from the original 56 picks by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences this week. This will make it very easy for the official nominees to be picked come January.
They were chosen by the branch of AMPAS that looks at short films, live action or animated, and branch screenings of the remaining films to narrow down to three to five picks will happen in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York come December. Generally as well, the remaining films get to have public screenings in limited release.
(Not sure how it works in London/U.K. or if there are only the BAFTA films, but here in the New York area about two theaters show all of the live-action, documentary and animated shorts as part of programs, always an eclectic bunch, including, last year, a short made by The Simpsons team, and usually there’s a Pixar short that may or may not win depending on quality – last year’s entry Paperman was a smashing success, though for this year the cute and clever Pixar diddy The Blue Umbrella, which screened before Monsters University, wasn’t chosen - Get a Horse! by Disney studios, and a *black and white short with Mickey Mouse!* got the pre-nomination instead, likely, I’d think, to screen before Saving Mr. Banks).
Here are the first picks:
“Feral,” Daniel Sousa, director, and Dan Golden, music and sound design (Daniel Sousa)
“Get a Horse!” Lauren MacMullan, director, and Dorothy McKim, producer (Walt Disney Feature Animation)
“Gloria Victoria,” Theodore Ushev, director (National Film Board of Canada)
“Hollow Land,” Uri Kranot and Michelle Kranot, directors (Dansk Tegnefilm, Les Films de l’Arlequin and the National Film Board of Canada)
“The Missing Scarf,” Eoin Duffy, director, and Jamie Hogan, producer (Belly Creative Inc.)
“Mr. Hublot,” Laurent Witz, director, and Alexandre Espigares, co-director (Zeilt Productions)
“Possessions,” Shuhei Morita, director (Sunrise Inc.)
“Requiem for Romance,” Jonathan Ng, director (Kungfu Romance Productions Inc.)
“Room on the Broom,” Max Lang and Jan Lachauer, directors (Magic Light Pictures)
“Subconscious Password,” Chris Landreth, director (National Film Board of Canada with the participation of Seneca College Animation Arts Centre and Copperheart Entertainment)
Nominations announce January 16th.
