2019 OSCAR NOMINATED SHORTS: LIVE ACTION

Approximate running time: 109 minutes

For the 14th consecutive year, Shorts HD and Magnolia Pictures present the Oscar-Nominated Short Films, opening on Feb. 8th. With all three categories offered – Animated, Live Action and Documentary – this is your annual chance to predict the winners (and have the edge in your Oscar pool)! A perennial hit with audiences around the country (and now the world), don’t miss this year’s selection of shorts. The Academy Awards ceremony takes place Sunday, Feb. 24th.

MADRE – Rodrigo Sorogoyen and Maria del Puy Alvarado, Spain, 19 minutes

A single mother receives a call from her seven-year-old son who is on vacation with his father in the French Basque Country. At first the call is a cause for joy, but soon it becomes a horrible nightmare when the child tells her that he is alone and cannot find his father who left a while ago.

FAUVE – Jeremy Comte and Maria Gracia Turgeon, Canada, 17 minutes

Set in a surface mine, two boys sink into a seemingly innocent power game with Mother Nature as the sole observer. Alone in the wild the two boys play around. Complicity evolves into a confrontation where one wants to have power over the other. Taking proportions larger than nature, this game will not prove as harmless as they thought.

MARGUERITE – Marianne Farley and Marie-Helene Panisset, Canada, 19 minutes

An aging woman and her nurse develop a friendship that inspires her to unearth unacknowledged longing and thus help her make peace with her past.

DETAINMENT – Vincent Lambe and Darren Mahon, Ireland, 30 minutes

Two ten year-old boys are detained by police under suspicion of abducting and murdering a toddler. A true story based on interview transcripts from the James Bulger case which shocked the world in 1993 and continues to incite public outrage across the UK today.

SKIN – Guy Nattiv and Jaime Ray Newman, USA, 20 minutes

A small supermarket in a blue collar town, a black man smiles at a 10 year old white boy across the checkout aisle. This innocuous moment sends two gangs into a ruthless war that ends with a shocking backlash.