The Academy skewed dark in its choice of live-action shorts this year, selecting four films to slit your wrists by — each one featuring child endangerment in a different form — and a fifth, about a diabetic on her death bed, that finds a glimmer of uplift at the other end of life. If that sounds like a complaint, think again: All too often, the Academy falls for either lightweight comedic shorts or over-earnest social-issue dramas, whereas this lot consists of several genuinely well-tooled micro-thrillers. It’s just a lot to stomach in a single, two-hour sitting.
The theatrical program opens with Spanish director Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s Goya-winning “Madre,” which begins with a slow pan of an empty beach — meaningless at first, but setting the stage for a parental nightmare that plays out entirely in the audience’s imagination. Like Gustav Möller’s nail-biting Danish feature “The Guilty,” this short conjures an...
The theatrical program opens with Spanish director Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s Goya-winning “Madre,” which begins with a slow pan of an empty beach — meaningless at first, but setting the stage for a parental nightmare that plays out entirely in the audience’s imagination. Like Gustav Möller’s nail-biting Danish feature “The Guilty,” this short conjures an...
- 2/23/2019
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
Each of the multi-award winning narrative shorts (40 minutes and under running time) explores a somber theme. Directors hail from Canada, Europe and Israel with one U.S.-made entry (“Skin”). Members of the Academy’s Short Films and Feature Animation Branch determined the shortlist and nominees, culled from 140 qualifying entries. Academy rules dictate that only voters who’ve seen all five films are eligible to vote in this category.
Detainment
Childhood’s darkest possibilities are explored in three of the films. “Detainment,” directed, written and produced by Dublin-based Vincent Lambe, along with producer Darren Mahon, is rooted in a true story and utilizes verbatim police transcripts, as two 10-year-old murder and kidnapping suspects are questioned in the notorious 1993 U.K. crime. The subject remains sensitive and controversial 25 years on. “I wanted to make sense of what happened in order to prevent it in the future,” says Lambe, who also works...
Detainment
Childhood’s darkest possibilities are explored in three of the films. “Detainment,” directed, written and produced by Dublin-based Vincent Lambe, along with producer Darren Mahon, is rooted in a true story and utilizes verbatim police transcripts, as two 10-year-old murder and kidnapping suspects are questioned in the notorious 1993 U.K. crime. The subject remains sensitive and controversial 25 years on. “I wanted to make sense of what happened in order to prevent it in the future,” says Lambe, who also works...
- 2/6/2019
- by Kathy A. McDonald
- Variety Film + TV
Ahead of the Academy Awards, we’re reviewing each short category. See the Live Action section below and the other shorts sections here.
Detainment – Ireland – 30 minutes
Two ten-year-old boys were placed into police custody in 1993 on suspicion of kidnapping and murdering the not-yet three-year-old James Bulger in Merseyside, England. They were interrogated separately with parents present about their whereabouts on that fateful day and whether or not they were guilty of the crime. It’s unfathomable to believe children so young could have done what they did, but it’s even harder to comprehend them lying about it when the truth starts to spill out. These interviews were recorded and eventually released as a matter of public record with certain tapes remaining sealed due to the graphic nature of what was described. The pair served eight years with appeals of fair trial violations reducing their sentences before receiving new identities in the aftermath.
Detainment – Ireland – 30 minutes
Two ten-year-old boys were placed into police custody in 1993 on suspicion of kidnapping and murdering the not-yet three-year-old James Bulger in Merseyside, England. They were interrogated separately with parents present about their whereabouts on that fateful day and whether or not they were guilty of the crime. It’s unfathomable to believe children so young could have done what they did, but it’s even harder to comprehend them lying about it when the truth starts to spill out. These interviews were recorded and eventually released as a matter of public record with certain tapes remaining sealed due to the graphic nature of what was described. The pair served eight years with appeals of fair trial violations reducing their sentences before receiving new identities in the aftermath.
- 2/5/2019
- by Jared Mobarak
- The Film Stage
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