W H A T :
the 2006 Academy Award ® nominated and winning live-action and animated films from Australia, Germany, Ireland, the UK and the USA.
W H E N :
Tuesday December 19, films begin at 7:00 pm, doors open at 6:30 pm.
W H E R E :
click for Directions & Map
T I C K E T S :
Tickets are available:
...and at these locations
($8 tix only, cash only),
click each location below for a map:
Sitwell's Coffee House
513 281 7487
Ben & Jerrys Green Mtn Cafe
513 861 8555
Lookout Joe Coffee Roasters
513 871 8626
Shake It Music & Video
513 591 0123
Tickets will also be available at the door, if not sold out in advance.
The 5th Annual Exhibition of
Oscar-Nominated Short Films
Featuring the 2006 Academy Award ® nominees and winners in the live-action and animated short film categories; including films from Australia, Germany, Ireland, the UK and the USA.
Animated and live-action short films generate a lot of interest at the Oscar ceremonies each year but then they vanish. A few show up on cable film channels, but rarely do they appear in local theatres. Since 2002, CWC's annual "Oscar Shorts" has been Cincinnati's only opportunity to see these excellent short films at one time in one place.
Ranging from comedy to serious drama, this year's live-action film performances are anchored by Brendan Gleeson (Breakfast on Pluto, Kingdom of Heaven, 28 Days Later), Kevin Pollack (End of Days, Buffalo 66, The Usual Suspects, A Few Good Men) and Sean Biggerstaff (Harry Potter); while the animated shorts include vocal characterizations by stars Paul Giamatti, John Turturro and Eli Wallach.
The animated offerings are artistically diverse and compelling, ranging from Shane Acker's rendition of Beowulf set in post-apocalyptic urban ruins in Nine, to sepia-tone Victorian silhouettes by Anthony Lucas in The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello, to the combination of crayon, still photos, and home movies applied to rough paper in John Canemaker's The Moon and the Son.
PARENTS NOTE: These films are not rated. However, we would suggest basic PG-13 cautions as Cash Back contains passive full female nudity (of the artist-and-model variety - no sexual contact) and Six Shooter contains strong language and violent themes.
Animated and live-action short films generate a lot of interest at the Oscar ceremonies each year but then they vanish. A few show up on cable film channels, but rarely do they appear in local theatres. Since 2002, CWC's annual "Oscar Shorts" has been Cincinnati's only opportunity to see these excellent short films at one time in one place.
Ranging from comedy to serious drama, this year's live-action film performances are anchored by Brendan Gleeson (Breakfast on Pluto, Kingdom of Heaven, 28 Days Later), Kevin Pollack (End of Days, Buffalo 66, The Usual Suspects, A Few Good Men) and Sean Biggerstaff (Harry Potter); while the animated shorts include vocal characterizations by stars Paul Giamatti, John Turturro and Eli Wallach.
The animated offerings are artistically diverse and compelling, ranging from Shane Acker's rendition of Beowulf set in post-apocalyptic urban ruins in Nine, to sepia-tone Victorian silhouettes by Anthony Lucas in The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello, to the combination of crayon, still photos, and home movies applied to rough paper in John Canemaker's The Moon and the Son.
PARENTS NOTE: These films are not rated. However, we would suggest basic PG-13 cautions as Cash Back contains passive full female nudity (of the artist-and-model variety - no sexual contact) and Six Shooter contains strong language and violent themes.
For complete film synopses, awards and filmmaker info, click on any of the film titles below or scroll down the page.
Live Action Films
Six Shooter A dark Irish tale of personal loss exacerbated by a bizarre encounter on a train.
Cashback A London art student’s vivid imagination runs wild as he works the graveyard shift at a local supermarket.
Our Time is Up When a therapist finds out he has six weeks to live, he adopts a fresh method of treatment: brutal honesty.
Aufreisser (The Runaway) A man is confronted by the six-year old son he didn’t know he had.
Animated Films
The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation The filmmaker explores the difficult emotional terrain of father/son relationships, specifically his own.
The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello A beautifully rendered silhouette and sepia-tone story of despair and discovery.
Badgered The tale of a grumpy badger who just wants the world to let him sleep.
Nine In a post-apocalyptic urban realm, humanity's successors battle for survival.
Bonus Short
The Fan and the Flower A sweet story of love between unlikely paramours.
Live Action Films
Six Shooter A dark Irish tale of personal loss exacerbated by a bizarre encounter on a train.
Cashback A London art student’s vivid imagination runs wild as he works the graveyard shift at a local supermarket.
Our Time is Up When a therapist finds out he has six weeks to live, he adopts a fresh method of treatment: brutal honesty.
Aufreisser (The Runaway) A man is confronted by the six-year old son he didn’t know he had.
Animated Films
The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation The filmmaker explores the difficult emotional terrain of father/son relationships, specifically his own.
The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello A beautifully rendered silhouette and sepia-tone story of despair and discovery.
Badgered The tale of a grumpy badger who just wants the world to let him sleep.
Nine In a post-apocalyptic urban realm, humanity's successors battle for survival.
Bonus Short
The Fan and the Flower A sweet story of love between unlikely paramours.
Six Shooter, Martin McDonaugh, Ireland, 2004, 27:00 Irish playwright Martin McDonagh makes his film debut with a dark comedy that's "blacker than a pint of Guinness and no less intoxicating." Set mostly on a train traveling through rural Ireland, a bereaved man coming home from the hospital where his wife has just died encounters a couple also touched by death - their infant has just died, and he also meets an odd young man with a twisted sense of humor (and an explosive secret) who turns an already sad day into something truly bizarre. The film stars Brendan Gleeson (Breakfast on Pluto, 28 Days Later, Kingdom of Heaven, Harry Potter) as Donnelly, the man whose wife has just died. In a strong supporting role, Ruaidhri Conroy (Hart's War, When the Sky Falls) is the strange and probably psychotic nameless young man on the train, simply called "Kid" in the credits. Conroy's portrayal of the Kid brings to mind Malcolm McDowell as Alex DeLarge in Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange -- a young person much too tightly wrapped, spinning out of control, part of a generation desensitized to violence and the profane. Other cast members include David Wilmot (Laws of Attraction, The Clinic, Intermission), and Aisling O'Sullivan (The Clinic, The Actors, The War Zone) in supporting roles.
Awards & Nominations
Oscar Winner, Best Short Film, Live Action, Academy Awards, USA 2006 Winner, Best British Short, British Independent Film Awards 2005 Winner, Best First Short by an Irish Director, Cork International Film Festival 2004 Winner, Best Irish Short, Foyle Film Festival 2004 Winner, Best Short Fiction, IFTA Awards 2005 Nominated, Best Breakthrough Writer/Director, IFTA Awards 2005 Nominated, Best Short Film, BAFTA Awards 2005 About the Filmmaker Rarely is a director's first film nominated for an Oscar, more rarely still does it win. Playwright Martin McDonagh's Academy Award experience underscores the importance of writing in the genre of live action short films. Considered a prodigy in contemporary theatre, McDonagh (born in 1970) quit school at age sixteen and spent five years writing radio scripts with little success. He wrote his first play, The Beauty Queen of Leenane in 1996 and his efforts were prolific, and rapid-fire (he wrote Beauty Queen in one week). A little more than a year later, McDonagh (then 27) had four plays running simultaneously in London, an honor previously attained only by William Shakespeare. Although new to film, McDonagh is no stranger to Cincinnati theatre-goers - a few years ago the Cincinnati Playhouse presented The Beauty Queen of Leenane and the Ensemble Theatre staged The Cripple of Inishmaan. The Beauty Queen of Leenane, A Skull in Connemara (1997), and The Lonesome West (1997) comprised a trilogy of plays mostly about death and guilt, set in Leenane, a remote town in County Galway. He authored a second trilogy exploring despair and violence, The Cripple of Inishmaan, The Lieutenant of Inishmore and The Banshees of Inisheer, all set in the Aran Islands. Rather than classic British or Irish theatre, McDonagh notes that the plays of David Mamet and the films of David Lynch, Quentin Tarentino and Martin Scoresese have had principal influence upon his development as a writer. And this can be seen via his facile use of language as action: The film Six Shooters is similar in that regard to his best-known theatrical work The Pillowman, and draws a new, younger generation to the theatre (and the screen) - one that is clearly not constrained by traditional structure or put off by the comtemporary argot of the street. [Back to Film List]
Cash Back, Sean Ellis, U.K, 2004, 17:30. Ben Willis, played by Sean Biggerstaff, (Oliver Wood in two Harry Potter films and Tom in Alan Rickman's The Winter Guest), is an art school student working the nightshift at a twenty-four hour supermarket. Seems an unlikely setting for a film: the stark, fluorescent-lit world of a grocery store, populated by a motley crew stocking shelves, cleaning up and hating the myriad boring chores that take place on the graveyard shift when sensible people are sleeping. And boredom is the key, where watching the clock guarantees that time passes with excruciating slowness... His coworkers engage in daydreams or adolescent pranks to pass the time, a metaphor for "getting by" in their bleak personal worlds that hold little future. But Ben lets his imagination conquer his boredom, creating a fantasy that stops time and freezes staff and shoppers alike in their tracks. Accompanied by Ben's running commentary, we see attractive women, in varying stages of undress, in suspended animation in the aisles. Is this a women-as-sex-object soft-core vignette? Nothing so tawdry. Ben's vision conjures expressionless nudes -- surreal still-life mannequins -- not lascivious. Altogether appropriate for consideration of the human form by an artist, as next we see Ben dilligently sketching the frozen women he has undressed. Cash Back is a nifty little gem of cinematic composition and an artistic tribute to the female form, aided by Ben's narration and numerous comedic and satirical elements that compliment the central theme. And chances are, next time around you'll see shoppers and staff in an entirely different light...
Awards & Nominations
Oscar Nominee, Best Short Film, Live Action, Academy Awards, USA 2006 Winner, Best Narrative Short, Tribeca Film Festival 2005 Winner, Grand Prix, Brest European Short Film Festival, 2004 Winner, Gold Hugo, Best Short Film, Chicago International Film Festival 2004 Winner, Best Film CICAE Award, San Sebastián (Es) International Film Festival, 2006 Winner, Audience Award, Évora (Pt) International Short Film Festival 2005 Winner, Audience Award, European Short Film Competition, Leuven (Be) International Short Film Festival 2004 Winner, First Prize Fiction, Lille (Fr) International Short Film Festival 2005 Seattle International Film Festival, 2005 Sao Paulo International Short Film Festival, 2004 Brest (Fr) Short Film Festival, 2004 Cleveland International Film Festival, 2005 Mediawave Film Festival, Hungary 2005 About the Filmmaker Born in Brighton England in 1970, director Sean Ellis was always fascinated with photography. Starting his fashion photography career in 1994, Ellis has worked with magazines such as ID, Face and Vogue, directed music videos and commercials and also collaborated with David Lynch on a series of images published in Harper's Bazaar. The Oscar-winning Cash Back is his second short film, his first effort was the 15-minute suspense Left Turn in 2001. Here is an excerpt of his interview with The Filmlot, where he discusses the transition from still work to filmmaking: "I became a fashion photographer in 1994 or 1995 and a lot of my fashion photography was lit very much like a film still. They were almost film stills for a movie I hadn't made. For me, it always felt like at one point I'll be able to cross over and do film. I started toying with the idea of doing pop videos and then commercials and then I did my first short film and then Cashback was my second short film. "I think the two mediums are obviously very different. [With] one you're dealing with a point where you work to a fraction of a second and at the top of that pyramid is a still photograph. Whereas with film you're dealing with a journey from A to B which is an expanse of time or an experience that you present and it has the added sense of sound which you don't have from stills. I'm very obsessed with that whole aspect of moviemaking." [Back to Film List] |
Our Time is Up, Rob Pearlstein & Pia Clemente, U.S.A, 2006, 14:40. After learning he has six months to live, psychiatrist Leonard Stern decides on a new manner of treatment for his self-obsessed patients - brutal honesty and zero tolerance. This is a major shift from what had become a sinecure, keeping his patients on the string for perpetual therapy, and the change affects his wacky assortment of neurotic wards in a variety of amusing, and ultimately positive, ways. As Dr. Stern, Pollack's (End of Days, Buffalo 66, The Usual Suspects, A Few Good Men, Casino, Hostage, She's All That, The Wedding Planner) low-key anal rentative on-screen persona meshes perfectly with the seven supporting actors who deliver spot-on portrayals as his odd assortment of patients. Our Time is Up is the lone American entry in this year's competition for Best Live-Action Short, and the only true comedy. "A remarkably assured directorial debut from commercial and TV writer Rob Pearlstein... Pearlstein's short is polished, professional and very amusing; Kevin Pollack's deadpan demeanor is the perfect foil for the raging neuroses of his patients." -- Steve Pond, Los Angeles Times "Our Time is Up was the most enjoyable short of the [Hamptons] festival, a nice 14-minute burst of perfect characterization, timing and humanity about a psychologist who realizes late (but not too late) what life is all about." -- S. Mark Rhodes, Films in Review
Awards & Nominations
Oscar Nomination, Best Short Film, Live Action, Academy Awards, 2006 Winner, Best Comedy, Aspen Shortsfest, 2005 Winner, Audience Award Best Short Film, Hamptons International Film Festival, 2004 Winner, Audience Award Best Short Film, Just for Laughs Comedia Festival, 2005 Winner, Audience Award Best Short Film, Portland International Film Festival, 2006 Runner-Up, Audience Award for Best Short Live Action Film, Palm Springs International Film Festival Official Selection, HBO U.S. Comedy Arts Festival, 2005 Official Selection, American Film Institute Festival, 2004 Official Selection, Las Vegas Comedy Festival Official Selection, Florida Film Festival, 2005 Official Selection, Gen Art Film Festival, 2005 Official Selection, CineQuest Film Festival, 2005 Official Selection, Mill Valley Film Festival, 2004 Official Selection, Santa Barbara International Film Festival, 2005 About the Filmmakers As writer/director and co-producer, Our Time Is Up is Rob Perlstein's first short film. His "day jobs" include work as a staff writer for the TV shows "Medium" and "The Inside" as well as creating television pilots and advertising copy. He has been pitching scripts in his free time and has film projects lined up with Universal Pictures, Focus Features and Working Title Films. Co-producer Pia Clemente has been in the Hollywood film industry for about ten years. Her credits include commercials, a Filipino-American feature length film and an Academy award winning student film. With Our Time Is Up, Clemente became the first Filipina woman ever to be nominated for a major Oscar. [Back to Film List] |
