Nov 10, 2020

2021 Academy Awards for Best Animated Short: See this year's nominees

Overall, the screening of animated shorts was not as severely disrupted by the pandemic as the screening of feature films. A few films faced delays, but their release was not as widely and extensively rescheduled as in Hollywood.

Nevertheless, there was one notable change in this year's race for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. To review, there are three ways for a short film to be eligible for the Academy Awards. They can be released theatrically under certain conditions, they can win at a designated "qualifying" film festival, or they can win at the Student Academy Awards. The number of films that can qualify through this route appears to have decreased slightly, as several festivals were canceled or postponed due to the pandemic.

However, there remains a rich harvest of films this year. Below is a sample of short films that are likely Oscar contenders. This list is neither exhaustive nor definitive. Simply because a film has won a qualifying award does not automatically make it eligible. Exactly which films will be nominated will not be known until the Academy officially announces the list.

This year's Animation Film Festival produced some very interesting winners. Shoko Hara's "Just a Guy" is a candid stop-motion documentary about three women (including Hara herself) who developed a close relationship with serial killer and rapist Richard Ramirez. Directed by Kangmin Kim, KKUM won an award at the Ottawa International Animated Film Festival. A moving tribute to the director's mother and her prophetic dreams, the film was made with a single Styrofoam doll. At the Annecy Film Festival, the latest film by Spanish master of the macabre, Alberto Vazquez, Homeless Home, won an award.

All three films are bold, distinctive, and unorthodox. It is hard to imagine which film will be favored by Academy voters, whose tastes do not always coincide with those of festival jurors.

Many other unique films won awards on the festival circuit. We have already written about Michael Frey's mischievous game film/installation hybrid "Kids," which won at Interfilm in Berlin; Toomas Beneath the Valley of the Wild Wolves, another bawdy comic directed by Chintis Lundgren Kapaemahu, an atmospheric retelling of a Hawaiian legend, qualified for a number of film festivals. Maryam Mohajer's "Grandad was a Romantic," winner of this year's Bafta Award, has one of the best punchlines I've seen in a film in a long time.

The final list of nominees always includes short films that qualify through the festival, but in most cases the statuette goes to a major studio production. These studio-produced shorts typically qualify for the award by being released to the public.

Pixar's young Spark shorts program continues to rapidly produce short films. These films often serve as test beds for progressive social themes that the studio has never before tackled. This year's nominees include "Out," a sweetly slapstick short about a gay man who dares to come out to his parents after wearing a magical dog collar, opening December 25 at Disney+, and "The Last of Us," about a young man who is forced to leave his family after he is murdered by his father.

Meanwhile, DreamWorks continues to run an equivalent program, Dreamworks Shorts. This year's film, To: Gerard, tells the story of a veteran postal worker with a knack for magic tricks. Directed by Dreamworks story artist Taylor Meacham, who describes the film as a love letter to his father.

The big move this year is Netflix's entry into the field; for the first time, Netflix has scored three animated shorts and will submit them for the Academy Awards. If Anything Happens I Love You," written and directed by Will McCormack (Toy Story 4) and Michael Govier (Conan); "Cops and Robbers," directed by Timothy Warehill (Kinky Boots tour) and Arnon Manner (Mondays web series); and the passionate project "Hair Love," from former Pixar animator Frank E. Abney III (producer of last year's Oscar-winning short "Hair Love"). Netflix's marketing prowess could give it a head start in this race. means it is likely to turn heads in this race.

Another key player in this race is the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), whose animated shorts are stylistically and thematically diverse and often push the boundaries of the medium. The organization's resources give it an edge over most of its independent rivals in the Academy Awards campaign. This year's entries include Andreas Hikade's "Altötting" (previously discussed), illustrator Catherine Lepage's nomic depiction of anxiety, "The Great Malaise," and Jean-François Lévesque's "I, Barnabé" There are.

The 93rd Academy Awards will be held on April 25, 2021.

From left to right in the top row of images, "KKUM," "I, Barnabé," and "Cops and Robbers."