Dead guy flour

Oscar®-nominated live-action shorts

Crit

Well, you've got an Irish film set in Ukraine and a Danish film set at the Chelsea Hotel, you've got one excellent film, three pretty good ones, and only one embarrassingly awful one (pretty good percentages by recent standards), and you've got nary the remotest Holocaust connection anywhere. So in theory the field is wide open.

• Kavi--A poverty-stricken young Indian boy is abused by his 100% evil brickmaking boss, though he is blessed with angelic parents and the arrival of professional do-gooders. The only way this can possibly have been nominated for best anything is by the filmmakers' somehow convincing committee members that a vote against it was a vote for slavery. Well, I'm going to take a courageous stand here: slavery is a very bad thing, and we should do all we can about the 17 million slaves worldwide invoked in the end titles, but notwithstanding that, this film is crap: trite, badly acted, badly directed, boringly shot, and without an iota of artistic merit. It is thus the second-likeliest nominee to win the Oscar.
• The New Tenants--A dramatic-irony-stricken young gay man is abused by his lover and by a series of doorbell ringers in this weird, wonderful piece reminiscent of a Sam Shepard play in the seemingly random arrivals and fatal departures of one character after another, each bringing along or (taking away) a crucial element of the building narrative. Should win, hasn't a chance in hell. Features appearances by the only two actors I recognized all afternoon, Vincent D'Onofrio and Kevin Corrigan.
• Miracle Fish--A poverty-stricken young Australian boy is abused by schoolyard bullies and one of those dreamlike where-the-hell-has-everybody-disappeared-to? scenarios. Very effective in keeping the viewer off-balance up until and even past the crucial reveal, and the climax comes and goes in a blink, so pay attention, dammit! But ask yourself a practical question at the end: given what we've seen, where the hell has everybody disappeared to (crucially not the same question as "What has happened to them?")?
• The Door--A radiation-stricken young Ukrainian girl is abused by Chernobyl and the Soviet regime's inept response to same. Another unabashed heartstring-tugger, but this one has the merit of excellent, spooky production values and a little bit of mystery. It is, in fact, what it will no doubt be called: haunting. If there's any justice in the universe, this will win. Of course, if there were a lot of justice in the universe, the best film would win, but that's a different proposition.
• Istället för abrakadabra (Instead of abracadabra)--A reality-stricken young Swedish magician is abused by a prop, his unsympathetic father, and himself. Clearly delightful to some in my audience, though I'd stop at thoroughly entertaining and engaging, the most likable of the set. I suppose it could be a dark horse if the heartstring vote gets split evenly.