Noticias

Two American university film schools are represented on this year’s Oscar shortlist for Best Live Action Short Film, which have to win film festival awards to qualify. The Academy’s Short Films and Animation branch selected 10 live-action shorts (out of 165 qualified submissions) to contend for Oscar nominations. They will now vote for five nominees from the shortlist after attending January branch screenings in Los Angeles, London, New York and San Francisco.

The shorts are listed below in alphabetical order. No film will be deemed a frontrunner until I have seen it.

Contenders:

“DeKalb Elementary,” Reed Van Dyk, director (UCLA)

“The Eleven O’Clock,” Derin Seale, director (Finch)

“Facing Mecca,” Jan-Eric Mack, director, and Joël Jent, producer (Dschoint Ventschr Filmproduktion)

“Icebox,” Daniel Sawka, director, and Camille Cornuel, producer (Iceboxthefilmco)

“Lost Face,” Sean Meehan, director, and Sam McGarry, producer (Soma Films)

“My Nephew Emmett,” Kevin Wilson, Jr., director (New York University)

“Rise of a Star,...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Short Films and Animation branch has selected its shortlist of 10 live-action short films (out of 165 qualified submissions) to contend for five Oscar nominations.

American film schools UCLA and Nyu both landed films on the list. “DeKalb University,” directed by UCLA’s Reed Van Dyk, premiered at the SXSW Film Festival and was nominated for the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences College Television Awards. “My Nephew Emmett,” from Nyu’s Kevin Wilson Jr., received the gold medal for narrative at the 2017 Student Academy Awards.

The 10 films are listed below in alphabetical order by title, with their production companies:

“DeKalb Elementary,” Reed Van Dyk, director (UCLA)

“The Eleven O’Clock,” Derin Seale, director (Finch)

“Facing Mecca,” Jan-Eric Mack, director, and Joël Jent, producer (Dschoint Ventschr Filmproduktion)

“Icebox,” Daniel Sawka, director, and Camille Cornuel, producer (Iceboxthefilmco)

“Lost Face,” Sean Meehan, director, and Sam McGarry,...

Friends Call Me Albert Written by Zachary Desmond Directed by Ryan Emmons Presented by No. 11 Productions at Access Theater, NYC August 23-September 10, 2017

The same day that we saw Friends Call Me Albert, Zachary Desmond's world premiere "bio-epic" of Albert Einstein, Gizmodo headlined a post about a new paper arguing that quantum entanglement is an inevitable feature of any fundamental physical theory, "Scientists Finally Prove Strange Quantum Physics Idea Einstein Hated." While the Gizmodo piece itself describes entanglement as "what allows particles that have once interacted to share a connection regardless of the separation between them," it also quotes Einstein's derisive description of it as "'spooky action at a distance.'" A century after his general theory of relativity was published and more than half a century after his death, Einstein remains, at least in the popular imagination, the central point of reference for modern physics. Desmond's play too takes this towering figure as its center,...

This year, some 500 filmmakers from 60 countries braved record temperatures to attend the 23rd annual Palm Springs International ShortFest (June 20-26), the largest short film festival and only short film market in North America. Psisf hosted 338 fiction and documentary shorts, 46 World Premieres, 12 International Premieres, 42 North American Premieres and 16 U.S. Premieres.

And more than 4,200 of the festival submissions were available in the Film Market for industry attendees to view online. Check out the complete lineup here.

Designated by AMPAS, BAFTA, and Bifa as an award-qualifying festival, and accredited by the International Short Film Conference, the festival gives its competition filmmakers a chance to secure $20,000 in cash prizes in 21 categories. The Panavision Best North American Short Award winner gets the use of a camera package valued at $60,000. Only the first-place winners in five categories are eligible to vie for an Academy Award nomination. Over 22 years, the Festival has presented 101 films that have...

This year, some 500 filmmakers from 60 countries braved record temperatures to attend the 23rd annual Palm Springs International ShortFest (June 20-26), the largest short film festival and only short film market in North America. Psisf hosted 338 fiction and documentary shorts, 46 World Premieres, 12 International Premieres, 42 North American Premieres and 16 U.S. Premieres.

And more than 4,200 of the festival submissions were available in the Film Market for industry attendees to view online. Check out the complete lineup here.

Designated by AMPAS, BAFTA, and Bifa as an award-qualifying festival, and accredited by the International Short Film Conference, the festival gives its competition filmmakers a chance to secure $20,000 in cash prizes in 21 categories. The Panavision Best North American Short Award winner gets the use of a camera package valued at $60,000. Only the first-place winners in five categories are eligible to vie for an Academy Award nomination. Over 22 years, the Festival has presented 101 films that have...

I've got a fantastic short film here for you to watch called "Lost Face" which is based on Jack London's classic short story of the same name. The story is set in the mid 1800s and it follows a fur thief who "must think fast to escape the terrible, protracted torture that awaits him at the hands of the native tribe he had helped enslave." The film was written and directed by Sean Meehan for Soma Films, and it is fantastic. If you're familiar with the story, this is a solid adaptation. If you aren't, it's still a great film worth watching. I hope you like it!