- Title: Five short films hope to win big at the Oscars
- Date: 24th February 2024
- Summary: BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES (FEBRUARY 12, 2024) (Reuters) (SOUNDBITE) (English) DIRECTOR, NAZRIN CHOUDHURY, SAYING: "I don't think we'll have even reached a year anniversary of when we first started rolling cameras to tell this story so it's been an incredibly quick journey for us to get here but an important one because we are about to head into an election a
- Embargoed: 9th March 2024 01:09
- Keywords: Invincible Knight of Fortune Live Action Shorts Oscars Red The After The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar White and Blue
- Location: BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES; UNIDENTIFIED FILMING LOCATIONS
- City: BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES; UNIDENTIFIED FILMING LOCATIONS
- Country: US
- Topics: Arts/Culture/Entertainment,Film,North America
- Reuters ID: LVA00H305923022024RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: They may not have the length of some of the Oscar best picture nominees, but the short live action films nominated this year each have a story to tell in a succinct manner.
British drama 'The After' stars David Oyelowo as he tries to navigate life following the sudden death of both his wife and daughter.
Director Misan Harriman told Reuters "The idea for the film really came from the tapestry of personal experiences and the collective experience we had in 2020 when COVID and the loss of George Floyd came into our lives and I realized that everyone had been through the mill so I wanted to make a film to let everyone know that it's ok to not be ok."
Canadian film 'Invincible' tells the story of a troubled teenager lashing out at the world.
It's based on the real life experiences of its director Vincent Rene-Lortie.
He said "It's the story of my childhood friend who passed away at the age of 14 years old after a very tragic accident, like he drove a stolen car into a river and at that time I couldn't understand why he would do something like that and what happened and it took me many, many years. I think it was like five or six years ago when I decided to go back into that story and try to understand what happened to my friend."
After months of casting, they came across young actor Leokim Beaumier-Lepine, who took on the part of the director's late friend, and shocked him with his uncanny resemblance as soon as he shaved his head for the role.
Danish film 'Knight of Fortune' sees two men in a morgue bonding over their inability to grieve their loved ones.
Director Lass Lyskjaer Noer also based the film on personal experiences.
He told Reuters "It started at a period of my life where I lost some people very close to me, so I was at this hospital morgue several times, which is not a very pleasant place to be, to say the least and I was fortunate to have family and friends around me to support but I was thinking, what if you don't have that? What if you had to go through this dark moment in your life all by yourself?"
British born American Nazrin Choudhury rushed to tell her short film, 'Red, White and Blue'.
As soon as 'Roe v Wade' was rescinded by the US Supreme Court, she wrote the screenplay and got the film rolling very quickly.
Choudhury told Reuters "I don't think we'll have even reached a year anniversary of when we first started rolling cameras to tell this story so it's been an incredibly quick journey for us to get here but an important one because we are about to head into an election and it's more important than ever to really be talking about bodily autonomy and protecting reproductive rights across the board because so many states just have reversed the access to healthcare and that is just damning and devastating for so many people in this country."
Rounding out the five in the live action short category is 'The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar' by Wes Anderson.
Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Ralph Fiennes, Dev Patel and Ben Kingsley, the film follows Henry Sugar, a man who can see through objects and predict the future.
The winner will be revealed at the Oscars on March 10.
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