{"id":2294221,"date":"2026-02-22T19:23:30","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T19:23:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2294221"},"modified":"2026-02-22T19:23:30","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T19:23:30","slug":"the-oscar-shorts-good-things-in-small-packages-arts-entertainment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/the-oscar-shorts-good-things-in-small-packages-arts-entertainment\/","title":{"rendered":"The Oscar Shorts: Good things in small packages | Arts & Entertainment"},"content":{"rendered":"
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There\u2019s much to enjoy in this varied assortment of short films<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
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This year\u2019s batch of Academy Award-nominated animation and live-action shorts is much more entertaining than those from the past several years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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The animated entries aren\u2019t visually weird or off-putting, and the live-action entries aren\u2019t unrelentingly depressing. The overall \u201cmood mix\u201d is varied, with a pleasant balance of serious, gently moral and laugh-out-loud amusing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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That said, one live-action entry is quite bizarre … and we\u2019ll get to that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Starting with animation, I\u2019ve always been impressed by filmmakers who tell their stories without dialogue, making them immediately approachable to viewers throughout the world. Two of this year\u2019s entries take that approach.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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U.S. writer\/directors Nathan Engelhardt and Jeremy Spears deliver a fascinating blend of carved wood elements and CGI in \u201cForevergreen,\u201d a charming little tale about an orphaned bear cub \u201cadopted\u201d by a fatherly tree. Their bond is strong until the bear reaches young adulthood, at which point it\u2019s tempted by the allure of easy human food: something the wise, long-lived tree knows could be dangerous.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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This film\u2019s overall look is enchanting. Engelhardt and Spears wanted their bear to be \u201ctree-like,\u201d to strengthen the viewer\u2019s impression of their rapport; the gentle CGI elements definitely deliver that emotional note.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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This 13-minute film\u2019s conclusion is a heart-tugger, so be prepared.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Russian director Konstantin Bronzit\u2019s \u201cThe Three Sisters\u201d employs classic, hand-drawn 2D animation, in an exaggerated style that enhances his story\u2019s broadly comic elements. (No, this has nothing to do with Chekhov.) Three devout sisters live a quiet life on a barren, isolated island that pokes out of the ocean like the upper half of a beach ball.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Supplies are deliver periodically by boat; the women pay with coins from a carefully guarded purse, which \u2014 horrors! \u2014 one day falls into the sea. Now forced to earn money by renting out one of their homes, the dynamic shifts abruptly when the new lodger turns out to be a grizzled fellow as coarse as they are delicate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Except they don\u2019t stay that way, once they vie for his attention…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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This core story is hilarious enough on its own, but Bronzit adds plenty of droll sight gags that are even funnier, thanks to his animation style.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Irish director John Kelly\u2019s \u201cRetirement Plan\u201d also employs hand-drawn 2D animation, in a flat, minimalist style that intentionally avoids flourish. Domhnall Gleeson voices Ray, a man who contemplates everything he\u2019ll be able to do in retirement, once he finally \u201chas time.\u201d Each of his imaginings is animated briefly, in a mildly amusing manner.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cI will finish all those books I started, I will play the lifetime of computer games I missed out on, I\u2019ll bird watch, I\u2019ll learn magpies are beautiful.\u201d And so forth.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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The dialogue feels like a poem that might have been published in \u201cThe New Yorker,\u201d which has championed this film. But the result isn\u2019t such a much, and wears out its welcome despite running only a brief seven minutes.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Montreal-based Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski employed a clever blend of stop-motion puppetry, hand-held cinematography and CGI facial animation for \u201cThe Girl Who Cried Pearls.\u201d This fairy tale-like story begins in contemporary times, in a tastefully lavish home, as an old man (voiced by Colm Feore) tells his inquisitive granddaughter (Jeanne Madore) about the hardships of his youth.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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He then narrates the subsequent action, as his childhood self \u2014 a poor street urchin \u2014 shelters one night in an abandoned apartment that shares a wall with a family, where a young girl is cruelly neglected. She cries each night, overwhelmed by sorrow, and \u2014 to the boy\u2019s astonishment \u2014 her tears form two perfect pearls, which roll across the floor and, thanks to a crack in the wall, into his hands.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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What follows involves a ruthless pawnbroker, a jewelry merchant, and the boy\u2019s awareness that choosing incorrectly \u2014 between love and fortune \u2014 could damn his soul.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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The set design is astonishing: Lavis and Szczerbowski built\u00a0an entire miniature dockside town<\/em>. Everything contributes to the old-world atmosphere, including Patrick Watson\u2019s haunting score. The puppetry is fascinating. CGI is employed to animate the mouths of the little girl and her grandfather, but the characters in the past have fixed expressions, like classic puppets, and emote solely via gesture and pantomime.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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If voters recognize and reward the sheer scale of effort, this one could win.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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I suspect, however, that the Oscar will go to France\u2019s Florence Miaihe, for “Butterfly,” her poignant retelling of Olympic swimmer Alfred Hakache\u2019s life. She employs a captivating \u201cpaint-on-glass\u201d style that adds a touching note to this amazing saga.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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A man swims in the ocean, using butterfly strokes. Memories flood to the surface \u2014 some glorious, some happy, some traumatic \u2014 as he dips above and beneath gentle waves.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Hakache was born in 1915, the youngest child in a Jewish family that lived in French-controlled Algeria. He overcame an initial fear of the water, and won his first swimming competition at the age of 16. He placed second in the 1934 French Championships, and subsequently joined the French team at Berlin\u2019s Summer Olympics. They finished fourth in the 4×200-meter freestyle relay, ahead of Germany\u2019s team.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Much happened during the next decade and change, and \u2014 not wanting to spoil the dramatic impact \u2014 suffice to say that Hakache, Agnes Keleti and Ben Helfgott are the only known Jewish athletes to have competed in the Olympics after surviving the Holocaust.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Miaihe\u2019s connection is deeply personal; she learned to swim with one of Hakache\u2019s brothers. The impressionistic animation often resembles a fluid painting, which perfectly fits the story. Her film is both beautiful and intensely powerful.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Shifting to live action, U.S. director Sam A. Davis\u2019 \u201cThe Singers\u201d is adapted from an 1850 short story written by Ivan Turgenev. The setting is a lowly American dive bar on a cold, snow-driven night. The place is half-filled with an assortment of grumpy, downtrodden men, some of them probably alcoholics, who grump at each other with profane belligerence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Wanting to lighten the mood, the bartender (Michael Young) proposes an impromptu sing-off: a suggestion met with scoffs of contempt … until one man responds. And then another…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Davis cast his film with singing talents from the unlikeliest corners of the Internet; Young, as just one example, is a viral subway busker and former \u201cAmerica\u2019s Got Talent\u201d contestant. Although this 18-minute charmer begins slowly, Davis builds events to a deeply touching conclusion, then adds a fleeting \u2014 and hilarious \u2014 final scene.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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JJ (Alistair Nwachukwu) suddenly blossoms like a flower, when he reads a passage from a play suggested by Dorothy (Miriam Margolyes), in \u201cA Friend of Dorothy.\u201d<\/p>\n
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England\u2019s \u201cA Friend of Dorothy\u201d is such a professional production \u2014 benefiting from a generous budget, excellent production design and cinematography, and an A-list cast \u2014 that it hardly seems fair to be placed amid its more modest competitors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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The story begins during the reading of a will, as the barrister (Stephen Fry) faces two young men across a table: 17-year-old JJ (Alistair Nwachukwu), curious and mildly uneasy; and Scott (Oscar Lloyd), insufferably arrogant and racist.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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The story then emerges in flashback. Miriam Margolyes stars as Dorothy, a lonely widow whose body is failing, while her mind remains as sharp as ever. Her dreary daily routine of pills, prunes and crosswords is rent asunder when JJ accidentally kicks his football into her garden.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Dorothy, blessed with an acute ability to read people, instinctively perceives an artistic bent in the young man. She has him read aloud from a book: a telling passage from Matthew L\u00f3pez\u2019s play, \u201cThe Inheritance.\u201d JJ becomes a regular visitor as the days and weeks pass, and \u2014 despite being worlds apart \u2014 the two become fast friends over shared interests.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Knight\u2019s film isn\u2019t merely charming \u2014 Margolyes and Nwachukwu are adorable together \u2014 but also possesses a strong moral, and a palpable emotional punch. It warrants repeat viewing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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That certainly isn\u2019t the case with the French production of \u201cTwo People Exchanging Saliva,\u201d the longest entry, at 36 minutes. Co-directors and writers Natalie Musteata and Alexandre Singh imagine a dystopian alternate universe society, where people pay for things by receiving slaps to the face (!), and kissing is punishable by death (!!).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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In order to reduce the possibility of succumbing to the latter, everybody routinely eats onions, garlic and other foul-smelling items, and then \u201chuffs\u201d their breath into the face of guards stationed in front of every store. An off-camera narrator (Vicky Krieps) supplies additional minor details.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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The story follows the initially unhappy Angine (Zar Amir Ebrahimi), who shops compulsively in a department store, where she catches the eye of a perky salesgirl named Malaise (Lu\u00e0na Bajrami). Alexandra de Saint\u2019s monochrome cinematography is so crisp that everything seems to have sharp edges, adding a further disorienting note.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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But the point of Musteata and Singh\u2019s absurdist saga of bourgeois sadness eludes me, except perhaps as a parable of the way desire can overcome fear, despite extreme government control. The premise is simply stupid; if intimacy is illegal, how would this society survive more than a single generation?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Estrogenia Talbot (Julia Aks) is delighted when Mr. Dickley (Ta\u2019imua) finally proposes to her, but he\u2019s about to learn more than he bargained for, in \u201cJane Austen\u2019s Period Drama.\u201d<\/p>\n
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In contrast, Julia Aks and Steve Pinder\u2019s \u201cJane Austen\u2019s Period Drama\u201d is a hilarious breath of fresh air. The title is a deliberate pun, and this 12-minute British treasure is a cheeky skewer of Austen\u2019s \u201cPride and Prejudice.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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The year is 1813. We meet Miss Estrogenia Talbot (Aks) just as she receives a long-awaited marriage proposal from her beloved Mr. Dickley (Ta\u2019imua). But then \u2014 horrors! \u2014 he discovers that she\u2019s bleeding, for a reason Austen never saw fit to discuss. Believing her injured, he rushes her home, where sisters Labinia (Samantha Smart) and Vagianna (Nicole Alyse Nelson) beg her not to imperil the engagement, by telling Mr. Dickey the truth. This opinion is shared by their father, Mr. Father (Hugo Armstrong).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Matters get increasingly uproarious, as Estrogenia opts to share every little bloody detail. The performances are deliberately over the top, but otherwise the production design, Regency-era costumes and lush cinematography are Austen-perfect. While I lament that it\u2019s over too quickly, I respect Pinder and Aks for knowing when to get their cast off the stage.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Finally, Israeli writer\/director Meyer Levinson-Blount\u2019s \u201cButcher\u2019s Stain\u201d is almost certain to take this Oscar. His somber 26-minute film \u2014 with a story that could be set today, in the real world \u2014 carries a powerful message of tolerance, reflexive suspicion, and the often rash impulse to condemn too quickly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Samir (Omar Sameer), a Palestinian butcher, works in an Israeli supermarket. He\u2019s affable and jovial with customers, many of whom insist on having him serve them. His personal life isn\u2019t as cheerful. His ex-wife abuses the shared custody arrangement concerning their adolescent son, and \u2014 not wanting to make things worse \u2014 Samir reluctantly tolerates it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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One fateful day, Samir\u2019s manager demands a private audience in her office, and coldly says that he has been accused of tearing down the Israeli hostage posters in the store\u2019s shared break room.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Levinson-Blount holds on Samir\u2019s initially mute reaction for a very long time, during which Sameer\u2019s eyes convey a wealth of emotions: confusion, disbelief, fear, uncertainty and \u2014 finally \u2014 carefully controlled anger. He denies the charge.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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The story suspensefully builds to a finale laced with a shattering twist that evokes the best \u201cgotcha\u201d conclusions in \u201cThe Twilight Zone.\u201d Except that this isn\u2019t fantasy; it could \u2014 and likely does \u2014 happen to actual people.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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The final scene breaks the fourth wall, as Samir looks directly into the camera. Levinson-Blount\u2019s message: It\u2019s up to us, to\u00a0fix<\/em>\u00a0this sort of thing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Rating:<\/strong> Unrated, akin to a PG-13 for occasional dramatic intensity<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Starring:<\/strong> Stephen Fry, Miriam Margolyes, Alistair Nwachukwu, Oscar Lloyd, Omar Sameer, Julia Aks, Ta\u2019imua, Zar Amir Ebrahimi, Lu\u00e0na Bajrami<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Available via:<\/strong> Movie theaters<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n
\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.davisenterprise.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There\u2019s much to enjoy in this varied assortment of short films This year\u2019s batch of Academy Award-nominated animation and live-action shorts is much more entertaining than those from the past several years. The animated entries aren\u2019t visually weird or off-putting, and the live-action entries aren\u2019t unrelentingly depressing. The overall \u201cmood mix\u201d is varied, with a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2294222,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[444566,444565],"class_list":["post-2294221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-444566","tag-a6"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/The-Oscar-Shorts-Good-things-in-small-packages-Arts.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2294221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2294221"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2294221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2294223,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2294221\/revisions\/2294223"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2294222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2294221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2294221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2294221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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