CWC :: Oscar Shorts 2012

Program A ~ Film Roster
Total Run Time approximately 109 minutes.

A MORNING STROLL
Oscar Nominee Animation
Directors Grant Orchard & Sue Goffe, UK, 7 minutes.

When a New Yorker walks past a chicken on his morning stroll, we're left to wonder which one is the real city slicker. Curiously composed of three repeating vignettes, each set at different points of time.

TUBA ATLANTIC
Oscar Nominee Live-Action
Director Hallvar Witzo, Norway, 25 minutes.

Everyone dies sooner or later. But according to his doctor, Oskar, 70, is going to die in six days. So now he wants to make peace with his brother for a disagreement years ago. Problem is, his brother lives across the Atlantic Ocean. Will he reach him before it is too late? Will a mysterious young woman help him or hold him back?

SKYLIGHT
Bonus Film - Oscar Shortlist Animation
Director David Baas, Canada, 5 minutes.

Skylight is a mock documentary about the ecological plight of penguins in the Antarctic, possibly foretelling cataclysmic results for the rest of the planet.

LA LUNA
Oscar Nominee Animation
Directors Enrico Casarosa, USA, 7 minutes.

The fable of a young boy who is coming of age in the most peculiar of circumstances. Tonight is the very first time his Papa and Grandpa are taking him to work. In an old wooden boat they row far out to sea, and with no land in sight, they stop and wait. A big surprise awaits the little boy as he discovers his family's most unusual line of work.

TIME FREAK
Oscar Nominee Live-Action
Directors Andrew Bowler & Gigi Causey, USA, 11 minutes.

A neurotic inventor creates a time machine, only to be caught up travelling around yesterday.

WILD LIFE
Oscar Nominee Animation
Directors Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby, Canada, 13 minutes.

Calgary, 1909: An Englishman moves to the Canadian frontier, but is rather unsuited to his new environment. His letters home are much sunnier than reality and the director compares his fate to that of a comet.

THE SHORE
OSCAR WINNER Live-Action
Director Terry George, Northern Ireland, 31 minutes.
Cast: Ciaran Hinds, Kerry Condon, Conleth Hill.

After 25 years in exile, Jim Mahon returns to Ireland to show his American daughter Patty his Belfast roots. But things don't go as planned when she learns of a secret love triangle and a long lost best friend, Paddy. Their reconciliation leads to hilarious confusion.

Directed by three-time Oscar nominee Terry George (Hotel Rwanda, In The Name of the Father), The Shore won Best Director and Best Actor at the Rhode Island Film Festival, and is nominated for an Irish Film and Television Award.

AMAZONIA
Bonus Film - Oscar Shortlist Animation
Director Sam Chen, USA, 5 minutes.

In the perilous world of the Amazon Rainforest, finding a meal proves to be an impossible task for a little tree-frog named Bounce. His luck changes when he meets Biggy, a blue-bellied treefrog who takes him under his guidance and shows him the ways of the jungle in this animated journey set to Beethoven's Symphony No.8.

Program B ~ Film Roster
Total Run Time approximately 109 minutes.

DIMANCHE
Oscar Nominee Animation
Director Patrick Doyon, Canada, 9 minutes

Every Sunday, it's the same old routine! The train clatters through the village and almost shakes the pictures off the wall. In the church, Dad dreams about his toolbox. And later, Grandma will get a visit and the animals will meet their fate.

PENTECOST
Oscar Nominee Live-Action
Director Peter McDonald, Ireland, 11 minutes.

When Damian is forced to serve as an altar boy at an important mass in his local parish, he faces a difficult choice: conform to the status quo, or serve an extended ban from his life's passion – football.

HYBRID UNION
Bonus Film – Oscar Shortlist Animation
Director Serguei Kouchernerov, Ukraine, 4 minutes.

In the imaginary land of Cyberdesert, Plus and Minus struggle with a dependency on an outdated source of energy. The mysterious self-sufficient Smart presents a new challenge for Plus and Minus and forces them to form an alliance – The Hybrid Union!

RAJU
Oscar Nominee Live-Action
Director Max Zahle, Germany/India, 24 minutes.

Director Max Zaehle, together with his Director of Photography Sin Huh, and wonderful actors Wotan Wilke M�hring and Julia Richter, succeed at making the moral dilemma faced by couples wishing to adopt emotionally palpable.

NULLARBOR
Bonus Film – Oscar Shortlist Animation
Director Alistair Lockhart, Australia, 10 minutes.

An animated road movie set across the vast and barren landscape of Australia's Nullarbor Plain.

GOD AND VODKA
BONUS FILM Live-Action
Director Daniel Stine, USA, 28 minutes.

God and Vodka is a poignant remembrance – the story of a writer's attempt to capture the words and memories, both touching and comedic, of a relationship that ended all too soon.

Evelyn and Ben grew up in a small Maryland town and shared a quirky on-again, off-again relationship ever since their childhood years. They shared their travails and aspirations, most often in the belfry of her father's church. It was there, and throughout their sleepy railroad town, where they forged a bond both expected to last a lifetime.

As Evelyn frames the story in her mind, she pieces together the millions of moments they shared, while creating an entirely new scene - perhaps their last - that brings them together for one more day.

One of the best short films we've seen, bar none. Artful screenwriting that evokes a range of emotions from joy to wry regret; crisp, snappy dialogue laced with nuance and subtle clues; beautiful cinematography and excellent production values all around; a perfectly matched soundtrack by Andrew Bird — the total package! This one should have been nominated - it could have won the live-action Oscar.

THE FANTASTIC FLYING BOOKS OF MR. MORRIS LESSMORE
OSCAR WINNER ANIMATION
Directors William Joyce & Brandon Oldenburg, USA, 2010, 15 minutes.

Inspired, in equal measures, by Hurricane Katrina, Buster Keaton, The Wizard of Oz, and a love for books, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is a poignant, humorous allegory about the curative powers of story.

Using a variety of techniques (miniatures, computer animation, 2D animation) award winning author/illustrator William Joyce and co-director Brandon Oldenburg present a hybrid style of animation that harkens back to silent films and MGM Technicolor musicals. Morris Lessmore is old fashioned and cutting edge at the same time.

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