Nov 19, 2015

Breaking News: Academy Announces 10 Animated Short Films as Oscar Nominees

Here is the list:

Members of the Short and Feature Animation Branch viewed all eligible films in preliminary voting. The chapter members will select five nominees from these ten films. Chapter screenings will be held in Los Angeles, London, New York, and San Francisco in December.

Nominations will be announced on Thursday, January 14, 2016.

Some considerations:

* Four of the ten finalists have been nominated for Oscars in the past: Don Hertzfeldt, Richard Williams, Constantine Bronzit, and Cordell Barker.

* While not a surprise (the film has qualified for four festivals), Chile's "Bear Story" deserves a special mention.

* Seth Boyden's short "An Object at Rest" is a CalArts student film; Vanessa Schwartz's "The Janitor" was nominated in 1994.

* My Home, a French short by Phuong Mai Nguyen, was also nominated for the César, the French equivalent of the Academy Awards.

* The animation category is guaranteed to be male-dominated again this year. Only two of the ten films nominated in the shorts category are directed by women, and no animated feature film nominee has been directed by a woman. On the short list for this year's Cesar Awards, eight of the 12 films were directed by women. Women make animated films, but the Academy does not recognize them.