Between Feb. 20 and March 15, the Oscar-nominated live-action and animated shorts programs will be screening at the Martha’s Vineyard Film Center. This year’s lineup offers a fascinating array, from amusing to touching to unsettling –– which is exactly how art should be.
All the animated shorts are visually stunning. Some are spare, like the clean line drawings in “Retirement Plan” by John Kelly. In seven short minutes, Ray regales us with what he will do now that he is not working, which becomes more meaningful as he ages: “I’ll reply to every email I’ve ever flagged … I will read the 35 years of saved articles on my reading list … I’ll learn to play a single piece on the piano really well … I will get good at being aggressively present … I will get good at saying yes. I will get better at saying no.” The steady rhythm of his plans is a sweet ode to the wisdom of aging.
There is no dialogue in Konstantin Bronzit’s “The Three Sisters,” which, with only sound effects, relates the often amusing story of what happens when a hearty seaman comes ashore, upending the quiet, simpatico lives of three single sisters on a remote small island in the middle of the sea.
The stop-motion animation with handmade puppets in Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski’s “The Girl Who Cried Tears” is evocatively complex, both visually and in its story. A grandfather recounts a tale from his childhood at the turn of the 20th century in Montreal. As a homeless boy, he falls in love with a poor girl whose harsh life causes her to cry tears that miraculously turn into pearls. He must wrestle with the Faustian dilemma of selling them to a ruthless pawnbroker for more money than he can imagine or staying true to the girl he secretly loves.
Next, moments of joy and sorrow bring tears to our eyes in Nathan Engelhardt and Jeremy Spears’ tender love story “Forevergreen,” which in this case is between an orphaned bear cub and a fatherly tree. Their sweet relationship is threatened along the cub’s journey to adulthood.
Florence Miailhe’s “Butterfly” is a visually and emotionally moving retelling of the Olympic swimmer Alfred Nakache’s life, from his rise to Olympic fame in the butterfly stroke to his surviving Auschwitz, presented as memories that flash back during his final swim.
The live-action shorts are equally impressive. Lee Knight gives us “A Friend of Dorothy,” a double entendre title. It is a tender story about an unlikely but endearing friendship between a lonely, elderly widow, Dorothy (Miriam Margolyes), and her new young friend, 17-year-old JJ (Alistair Nwachukwu), who, through her, learns of the inference to gay culture in the term “a friend of Dorothy.”
In Meyer Levinson-Blount’s “Butcher’s Stain,” the life of Palestinian butcher Samir (Omar Sameer Mahamid) comes apart when he is accused of tearing down hostage posters at the break room of the Israeli supermarket in which he works.
The astounding voices of the worse-for-wear patrons in a rough-and-tumble dark, smoky bar in Sam A. Davis’ “The Singers” are a treat. Mike Young, Chris Smither, Will Harrington, Judah Kelly, and Matthew Corcoran participate in an impromptu sing-off over the course of a night in this film adaptation of a 19th-century short story written by Ivan Turgenev.
Natalie Musteata and Alexandre Singh’s “Two People Exchange Saliva” is a disturbing, dystopian tale of yearning and love in a society in which people are killed for kissing and pay with slaps on the face for goods and services. The story unfolds in an upscale department store, where a wealthy, detached patron becomes dangerously drawn to a subversive younger salesperson under the ever-watchful eye of a suspicious coworker.
“Jane Austen’s Period Drama” by Julia Aks and Steve Pinder is a hysterical, fast-paced send-up of the romantic moments in early 19th-century English period dramas. When handsome Mr. Dickley (Lachlan Ta‘imua Hannemann) goes down on his knees to propose to Miss Estrogenia (Julia Aks), he comes face-to-face with blood on her long white gown. Mistakenly thinking her period is an injury, he rushes her home, where mayhem ensues as sisters Vagianna (Nicole Alyse Nelson) and Labinia (Samantha Smart) try to persuade her not to tell this expensively educated but naive man the truth.
The Oscar shorts programs will play intermittently from Feb. 20 to March 15 at the M.V. Film Center. Note: Not all shorts are suitable for young audiences.