See the 2016 Oscar-Nominated Short Films in a Theater Near You!

It seems that short films always seem to draw — forgive the pun — the short stick when it comes to exposure after the Academy Award nominations are announced in January. Films like this year's nominated Revenant, The Big Short, Spotlight, and many others have seen their box office receipts grow thanks to Best Picture nominations while those nominated in the various Short Film categories don't exactly reap the same types of benefits — at least outside of the film industry.

When it comes time for the actual awards ceremony, audiences all too often tune out — or skip forward if they've recorded the event on their DVRs — when it's time for short films to be recognized with their list of nominees and the announcement of the winners. Reason being is that audiences haven't been able to see the short films. Most of the population doesn't attend film festivals and certainly don't live near, or travel to, places like Sundance, Austin, etc. And the major theater chains obviously aren't reserving many theaters for them as well.

Thankfully, there's a way that audiences and filmmakers alike can see these under-celebrated and otherwise hard to find short films.

ShortsHD, a cable channel dedicated to short films, and Magnolia Pictures are teaming to put The Oscar Nominated Short Films of 2016 into movie houses on January 29th. The program — which includes all 15 live-action, animated and documentary shorts — will screen in more than 400 screens across the U.S., Canada, Europe and Latin America.

“Short film is like film on steroids,” said ShortsHD CEO Carter Pilcher. “For talent, short film vastly expands opportunities, provides an incredible forum for experimentation and creates a pathway for further success. For viewers, short film offers an abundance of dynamic stories, which are told in ways that they cannot be or are not being told in feature film, including films that may be uniquely relevant to their cultures.”

For the past eleven years this program has been going on and is now seeing more exposure, giving audiences their only opportunity to watch the nominated shorts before the 88th Annual Academy Awards on February 28. Last year’s program earned more than $2.4 million worldwide. This year’s nominated shorts represent more than a dozen countries: the U.S., France, Germany, Palestine, UK, Kosovo, Austria, Chile, Russia, Liberia, Pakistan, Vietnam and Canada.

“As the short film genre continues to pick up in popularity and competitiveness,” Pilcher said, “with it comes an increase in the quality of production and diversity of voices.”

CLICK HERE to find out where you can see these films near you on January 29th!

And if you're a screenwriter or filmmaker that aspires to be on a future list of nominees one day, please submit your short script or project to our Short Film Production Fund! Submissions are open throughout the year during these quarters (January 1 – March 31, April 1 – June 30, July 1 – September 30, October 1 – December 30). You can have a chance to be awarded up to $20,000 in grants to produce and shoot your short film, with the guidance and support of ScreenCraft and BondIt.

Please read our exclusive interview with the first recipient of the Short Film Production Fund, Natasja Maria Fourie.   

See these nominated short films on January 29th at a theater near you!

LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM NOMINEES

Ave Maria
Directors: Basil Khalil and Eric Dupont
Synopsis: Five nuns living in the West Bank find their routine disrupted when the car of a family of Israeli settlers breaks down outside the convent. Unable to use the telephone due to Sabbath restrictions, the family needs help from the nuns, but the sisters’ vow of silence requires them to work with their visitors to find an unorthodox solution.
Country of origin: France | Germany | Palestine
TRT: 15 minutes
Language: Arabic | English | Hebrew

Day One
Directors: Henry Hughes
Synopsis: On the heels of a painful divorce, an Afghan-American woman joins the U.S. military as an interpreter and is sent to Afghanistan. On her first mission, she accompanies troops pursuing a bomb-maker, and must bridge the gender and culture gap to help the man’s pregnant wife when she goes into labor.
Country of origin: United States
TRT: 25 minutes
Language: English | Dari

Shok
Directors: Jamie Donoughue
Synopsis: In Kosovo in 1998, two young boys are best friends living normal lives, but as war engulfs their country, their daily existence becomes filled with violence and fear. Soon, the choices they make threaten not only their friendship, but their families and their lives.
Country of origin: United Kingdom | Kosovo
TRT: 21 minutes
Language: Albanian | Serbian

Stutterer
Directors: Benjamin Cleary and Serena Armitage
Synopsis: For a lonely typographer, an online relationship has provided a much-needed connection without revealing the speech impediment that has kept him isolated. Now, however, he is faced with the proposition of meeting his online paramour in the flesh, and thereby revealing the truth about himself.
Country of origin: United Kingdom
TRT: 12 minutes
Language: English

Everything Will Be Okay (Alles Wird Gut)
Directors: Patrick Vollrath
Synopsis: Michael, a divorced father devoted to his eight-year-old daughter, Lea, picks her up for their usual weekend together. At first it feels like a normal visit, but Lea soon realizes that something is different, and so begins a fateful journey.
Country of origin: Germany | Austria
TRT: 30 minutes
Language: German

ANIMATED SHORT FILM NOMINEES

Bear Story
Directors: Gabriel Osorio and Pato Escala
Synopsis: Every day, a melancholy old bear takes a mechanical diorama that he has created out to his street corner. For a coin, passersby can look into the peephole of his invention, which tells the story of a circus bear who longs to escape and return to the family from which he was taken.”
Country of origin: Chile
TRT: 11 minutes
Language: No Dialouge

Prologue
Directors: Richard Williams and Imogen Sutton
Synopsis: 2,400 years ago, four warriors — two Spartan and two Athenian — battle to the death in an intense struggle witnessed by a little girl, who then runs to her grandmother for comfort.
Country of origin: United Kingdom
TRT: 6 minutes
Language: English

Sanjay’s Super Team
Directors: Sanjay Patel and Nicole Grindle
Synopsis: Young Sanjay, a first-generation Indian-American, is obsessed with television, cartoons and his superhero action figures. He is reluctant to spend time in daily prayers with his devout Hindu father, but a flight of imagination helps him develop a new perspective that he and his father can both embrace.
Country of origin: United States
TRT: 7 minutes
Language: English

World of Tomorrow
Directors: Don Hertzfeldt
Synopsis: A little girl named Emily is taken on a fantastical tour of her distant future by a surprising visitor who reveals unnerving secrets about humanity’s fate.
Country of origin: United States
TRT: 17 minutes
Language: English

We Can’t Live Without Cosmos
Directors: Konstantin Bronzit
Synopsis: Two best friends have dreamed since childhood of becoming cosmonauts, and together they endure the rigors of training and public scrutiny, and make the sacrifices necessary to achieve their shared goal.
Country of origin: Russia
TRT: 16 minutes
Language: No Dialogue

DOCUMENTARY SHORT NOMINEES

Body Team 12
Directors: David Darg and Bryn Mooser
Synopsis: In Monrovia, Liberia, Garmai Sumo is the only female member of Body Team 12, one of the many teams collecting the bodies of those who died from Ebola during the height of the 2014 outbreak. Despite the perilous nature of her job and the distrust with which she is often met, Garmai remains dedicated to her work.
Country of origin: Liberia
TRT: 13 minutes
Language: English

Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah
Directors: Adam Benzine
Synopsis: Thirty years after the release of the documentary SHOAH, filmmaker Claude Lanzmann discusses the personal and professional difficulties he encountered during the more than 12 years it took to create the work. Lanzmann also discusses his relationships with Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, and his teenage years spent fighting in the French Resistance during World War II.
Country of origin: Canada | United States | United Kingdom
TRT: 40 minutes
Language: French

Chau Beyond the Lines
Directors: Courtney Marsh and Jerry Franck
Synopsis: Chau, a teenager living in a Vietnamese care center for children born with birth defects due to Agent Orange, struggles with the difficulties of realizing his dream to become a professional artist and clothing designer. Despite being told that his ambitions are unrealistic, Chau is determined to live an independent, productive life.
Country of origin: United States | Vietnam
TRT: 34 minutes
Language: Vietnamese

A Girl in the River
Directors: Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
Synopsis: Every year, more than 1,000 girls and women are the victims of religiously motivated honor killings in Pakistan, especially in rural areas. Eighteen-year-old Saba, who fell in love and eloped, was targeted by her father and uncle but survived to tell her story.
Country of origin: Pakistan
TRT: 40 minutes
Language: Panjabi

Last Day of Freedom
Directors: Dee Hibbert-Jones and Nomi Talisman
Synopsis: When Bill Babbitt realized that his brother Manny had committed a crime, he agonized over the decision to call the police, knowing that Manny could face the death penalty but hoping he would instead receive the help he needed. Manny, an African-American veteran who served two tours in Vietnam, suffered from PTSD and had found it difficult to obtain healthcare.
Country of origin: United States
TRT: 32 minutes
Language: English

Source: Deadline