GVN Guide To The 2022 Oscar-Nominated Short Films

If The Academy’s recent decisions are any indication, the art of the short film is severely under-appreciated. It’s the starting point for most prominent filmmakers, yet audiences seem to have little appreciation for them beyond Pixar Animation and Marvel One-Shots.

Every year, the Oscar-Nominated Short Films are a chance to step outside of your comfort zone and expose yourself to concise but powerful stories. Not only do these three categories cover a wide gamut of genres and voices, they also feature work from different countries. For those of us who engage with international film regularly, we can all agree that one category at the ceremony is never quite enough.

Thanks to ShortsTV, you can watch all of this year’s nominees in the days leading up to the ceremony in a theater near you! However, some of you may not have that kind of time. Can’t relate.

For those of you interested in getting a taste for what these categories have to offer, or even if you’re just looking to win your Oscar Pool, you’re in the right place. Let’s dive into this year’s shorts and see who we predict will take home the gold.

Animation

As previously mentioned, most people’s first (and only) exposure to short films come from the Mouse House. Disney Animation has been a dominant competitor in this category since their first nomination at the fifth Oscars ceremony in 1931. As of 2022, they have been nominated over 45 times, over 65 times if you count Pixar’s efforts. However, in a shocking turn of events, they are nowhere to be found amongst this year’s nominees.

Normally this would leave the category wide open. However, Robin Robin seems to have comfortably taken Disney’s place this year as “the cute one”…there’s always a cute one. Produced by the beloved folks at Aardman and distributed by Netflix, its adorable character designs and impeccable stop-motion felt puppetry are sure to charm the pants off of just about anyone. With its silly musical numbers and a heartfelt message, it has all the makings for a winner. Plus, with Netflix’s vast accessibility and strong campaign, both of which helped them beat Pixar last year with the heart-wrenching If Anything Happens I Love You, they likely will score another win here and establish themselves as a strong competitor in the category going forward.

Robin Robin also stands out as the only…ahem, “pleasant,” short in the mix this year. While each one is technically impressive, none of them are a walk in the park. In direct contrast to Robin Robin is Beast (Bestia), another stop-motion short that uses the same medium but with wildly different intentions. Inspired by the life and crimes of Íngrid Olderöck, a member of Chile’s secret police, director Hugo Covarrubias uses both felt and porcelain to construct stoic character models. Our story, largely framed around Olderöck’s relationship with her dog, starts off innocent, maybe even cute. But as we watch several surreal dream sequences, the film descends into something truly shocking. It’s the hardest-hitting short of the bunch, and my personal favorite.

This category gets really fun when filmmakers start experimenting. The Windshield Wiper, a kaleidoscopic exploration of love, relationships, and human connection, is a hybrid of 3D animated characters with 2D painted backgrounds. The film has so many different visual styles within that duality that the entire experience feels like worlds are colliding, which is fitting. Director Alberto Mielgo, who served as a production designer on Into The Spider-Verse, notes in the film’s credits that he was inspired by his travels across the world, from Los Angeles to London to Tokyo and beyond. Though the film’s connective tissue is a bit too shoestring, certain vignettes hit a nerve. One particularly effective one has two singles match with each other on a dating app but are too absorbed in their phones to see that they’re standing right next to each other. It all feels quite personal, but perhaps a bit too personal to fully translate into a well-paced short.

Lastly, traditional 2D animation is here to play with two unique entries. Affairs of the Art is the latest in a series of shorts featuring the character Beryl, voiced by director Joanna Quinn, an older, heavyset woman who strives to be a successful visual artist. Much like Beryl’s drawing style, the film’s line work is scraggly and unkempt. It gives the entire short a sense of kinetic motion that elevates the atmosphere, that being general discomfort and, at times, disgust. Boxballet (BoksBalet) fares better, though it also features some rather rough and tough boxing sequences. The short follows the budding romance between a slim ballerina and a bulky boxer, particularly how their different occupations present unique challenges. The short moves at a brisk pace with almost no spoken dialogue, so there isn’t an uncompelling moment, but the vague, politically-charged ending leaves something to be desired.

Oscar Prediction: As the most accessible nominee, both in terms of streaming and storytelling, Robin Robin likely has this in the bag. But don’t count out The Windshield Wiper to take a surprise victory as the most artistic of the bunch.

Live-Action

Hooooo boy. If your spirits took a hit after the animated shorts, you certainly are not prepared for the cruelty lying at the center of this year’s five live-action shorts. Though they range in intensity, each story forces the viewer to reckon with tragedy, ranging from personal traumas to systemic injustice. 

The short leading the pack at the moment is The Long Goodbye, directed by Aneil Karia (Surge) and starring Riz Ahmed (hot off of his Best Actor nomination for Sound of Metal). Though it is a self-contained story, it acts as a fictional companion piece to Ahmed’s autobiographical album, also titled “The Long Goodbye,” which explores the United Kingdom’s abuse and mistreatment of its South Asian population. After a horrifying attack on his family, Ahmed recites an anguished outcry against the country’s deep-seated racism. Half spoken-word, half rap, but all bars, the monologue originated on the album but is far more effective in the film, performed in real-time over one long take. Ahmed’s character, reeling from shock, struggles to spit the words out until he suddenly can’t stop. Ahmed’s star power, not to mention the resonant political messaging conveyed with modern potency, makes this the obvious frontrunner.

Please Hold also tackles racial oppression but through the lens of prison privatization. Set in a (sadly) not-too-distant dystopian future, a young man named Mateo is on his way to the bus stop when he is suddenly and mistakenly arrested by a police drone. The image of a Latino man being asked to self-administer handcuffs is a bold image to open on, setting us up for plenty more imaginative yet all-too-real imagery. Mateo is sent to “Correcticorp,” a fully automated prison, putting him in absurd situations such as almost pleading guilty after being misheard by a Siri-esque computer AI. Our frustration with automation acts as a brilliant metaphor for the lack of humanity provided toward people of color in the American prison system, all well-realized by strong production design and inventive visual effects. This comedic approach to its commentary lacked the abrupt cruelty from other entries this year, making it enjoyable but far from spineless and my personal favorite of the bunch.

The remaining three shorts are all European entries and don’t pull any punches. On My Mind, from Denmark, keeps things light at first. Needing to clear his head, a man enters a quiet dive bar for a drink and sees they have a karaoke machine. Despite the owner’s resistance, the man insists he sing an Elvis standard, “Always On My Mind,” for his wife. The reason behind his insistence is, naturally, heartbreaking. However, the lead up to the reveal is quite lifeless, with performances and cinematography that feel a little too bare bones. The Dress (Sukienka), from Poland, follows Julka, an emotionally-hardened woman of short stature who secretly longs for romantic intimacy. She hits it off with a truck driver passing through town, but things take a deceivingly dark turn in its final moments that reeked of shock-value trauma porn. It puts a damper on an otherwise impressive graduate thesis from Warsaw Film School student Tadeusz Łysiak, who gives the short a cinematic quality that has me cautiously optimistic for his feature debut.

Finally, Ala Kachuu – Take and Run, an entry produced by Switzerland but set in Kyrgyzstan, features a similarly abrupt shift in tone. Sezim is a young woman from a rural village who longs to be a student and study in the country’s capital. Despite her mother’s disapproval, she runs away and begins making a new life for herself. One afternoon at her new job, she is randomly kidnapped by a group of young men, taken to a separate rural village, and forced into marrying a total stranger. The term ala kachuu is Kyrgyz term for bride kidnapping. The film aims to inform audiences of the relatively underseen world of nonconsensual marriage that is still practiced on the outskirts of the country. Unaware of the context behind the film, I was gobsmacked at the film’s total 180. This was likely an attempt to replicate the shock and displacement felt by victims of this tragedy, but I struggled to settle into the film’s ultimately somber, tragic narrative despite its attempts to flesh out the characters and story world.

Oscar Prediction: Riz Ahmed’s popularity and established talent puts The Long Goodbye as the likely winner, but Ala Kachuu’s popularity at several short film festivals gives it an underdog edge.

Documentary

Thankfully, the documentary shorts are much easier to swallow. Though a few of them do have sadness laced underneath their stories, it’s done with, shall I say, a bit more ease. Not saying that’s what makes good filmmaking…but it sure does make it easier to process everything!

The New York Times has lately been a strong contender in this category with their Op-Docs series, earning five nominations in just seven years. They have never earned the gold, but this year looks to break their losing streak as The Queen of Basketball leads the race. The titular royalty is Lusia “Lucy” Harris, one of the all-time greats in women’s basketball with a list of accolades that would make anyone feel silly for not knowing her story. Thankfully, this documentary covers it from top to bottom, all anchored by a superb interview with Harris herself, who has long since retired from the sport. Incredibly charismatic without ever being trite, she’s great on camera and a compelling subject, elevated by the film’s strong editing and wealth of perfect archival footage. Sadly, Harris passed away this past January, but it is this somber epilogue that makes the film’s victory a meaningful way to pay tribute. As my favorite short in the category, I’ll be rooting for it.

When We Are Bullies is maybe my second-favorite, though I’m not sure if it should be? It’s a fascinating cinematic experiment despite humble origins: filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt reconnects with a former classmate who recounts the day their entire fifth grade class mercilessly bullied a single classmate. Anybody confronted with this would obviously get defensive, but Rosenblatt drops down this rabbit hole in an attempt to answer an age-old question: what brings young children, specifically boys, to torment each other? As he reconnects with former classmates and gathers more testimony, you expect the film to reach a point of deep self-reflection. Sadly, this never happens. Rosenblatt chooses to tie things up in a neat bow despite all the answers being right in front of him, but this very suppression of the hard truth might make this an even more compelling short. At one point during an interview, the idea for the film is described as “tedious.” Perhaps it is tedious to watch a bully attempt to slash open old wounds with little reconciliation for the victim himself. But, regardless, the film stands as an answer to its own question. The filmmaker just isn’t in on it. Criticize the film all you want, but a standard documentary could never.

Speaking of which…the kind of momentum that NYT has found in one short, Netflix can’t seem to find in three! Though it is almost funny seeing the streamer triple its odds in this category after failing to sweep the shorts last year (thank you Colette), it’s even funnier to see none of them gaining traction. Audible fairs the best out of all of them, following a successful all-deaf football team that prepares to compete against a hearing school. It hones in on a few key students at the school, telling a unique story that serves as a piece of meaningful representation. The editing is far too frantic, more reminiscent of a Nike commercial than a documentary, but the substance overwhelms the style just enough to redeem it.

Sadly, the other two failed to maintain my interest. Three Songs For Benazir, the closest this category has to second place, is fairly subpar in almost every regard: the subjects are bland, the story is aimless, and the cinematography feels oddly forced. I wouldn’t claim the documentary is staged, but it sure does not feel as genuine as the story would call for. Lead Me Home suffers from the opposite problem. The film tackles the ongoing homelessness epidemics in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle, but this is an oddly wide net. Covering three cultural hubs of the West Coast gave directors Pedros Kos and John Shenk countless strong subjects, but the film chooses to focus on all of them instead of whittling it down. It spreads their cause too thin. Ultimately, the film fails to add much to the conversation other than honestly portraying the struggle, which they are far from the first to do. Better luck next year, Netflix.

Oscar Prediction: The Queen of Basketball has little to no competition for this award. If you wanna be rebellious, Three Songs For Benazir is your best Hail Mary.

Don’t forget to visit ShortsTV and watch all the shorts before the big day. And, if you’re interested in keeping up short films more consistently, Short of the Week is a great resource for…well, a new short film every week. Who knows? Maybe you’ll be the expert next year.