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The Academy skewed dark in its choice of live-action shorts this year, selecting four films to slit your wrists by — each one featuring child endangerment in a different form — and a fifth, about a diabetic on her death bed, that finds a glimmer of uplift at the other end of life. If that sounds like a complaint, think again: All too often, the Academy falls for either lightweight comedic shorts or over-earnest social-issue dramas, whereas this lot consists of several genuinely well-tooled micro-thrillers. It’s just a lot to stomach in a single, two-hour sitting.

The theatrical program opens with Spanish director Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s Goya-winning “Madre,” which begins with a slow pan of an empty beach — meaningless at first, but setting the stage for a parental nightmare that plays out entirely in the audience’s imagination. Like Gustav Möller’s nail-biting Danish feature “The Guilty,” this short conjures an...

The shorts and animation branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences chose its final five from 140 qualifying films. In order to qualify for Oscar contention, shorts have to win an award at an eligible film festival. Last year’s winner, for example, Chris Overton and Rachel Shenton’s “The Silent Child,” debuted at the Rhode Island International Film Festival before going on to win the Academy Award.

Many Academy voters don’t catch up with these shorts from emerging filmmakers around the world until they’re nominated. This year’s five contenders hail from four countries, and deal with a disturbing range of dark subjects, often involving children in jeopardy.

Irish director Vincent Lambe’s controversial, true-life drama, “Detainment,” focuses on the shocking 1993 Liverpool murder of a toddler by two 10-year-old boys, who are interrogated by skeptical police.

Jérémy Comte’s 16-minute Sundance winner, “Fauve,” also focuses...