Director Martin Scorsese’s Oscar nominated “Killers of the Flower Moon” clocked in at a whopping 3 hours, 26 minutes.
These films, on the other hand, skillfully pack lots of power — unexpected love, laughs, tears and insights — into just a few minutes.
The annual run of Academy Award-nominated short films starts Friday at Clark County’s two independent theaters, the Kiggins in Vancouver and the Liberty in Camas. They’ll continue screening in three bundles — live-action films, animated films and documentaries — until the big Oscars ceremony on March 10.
How long is short? The individual pieces vary widely, with animated films averaging 11 minutes while documentary and live-action films are closer to half an hour each. That keeps the overall animated program pretty short (80 minutes), while both the live-action and documentary lineups are over two hours.
Richard Beer, director of programing at Kiggins, said his favorite short films convey what seem like key slices of larger stories, leaving viewers hungry for more.
“There are feature-length films where you come out thinking, ‘I don’t want to spend another minute with these people,’ ” Beer said. “With a great short film, I’m thinking, ‘I care so much about these people. I wish I knew more.’ ”
Fun, wise
Documentaries are often where you’ll find heavy stories of human suffering. But this year, Beer was surprised to find the documentary program full of joy and fun.
“It’s an extremely uplifting year for documentaries,” Beer said. “I was really expecting it to be bleak. I was expecting a huge surge in documentaries about COVID.”
Instead, he found himself falling in love with two grandmothers who live playfully together like sisters — rising and stretching, singing and dancing, even bickering in bed over who farted — in “Nai Nai and Wài Pó.”
“They’re like a couple of teenaged boys,” Beer said. “It’s one of the most charming little films you’ve ever seen.”
Several of the documentaries are positively inspiring, Beer said. In “The Barber of Little Rock,” one small business owner attacks the racial wealth gap by operating his own nonprofit community bank. “The Last Repair Shop” explores a Los Angeles facility that provides free musical instruments and instrument repairs for schoolchildren.
The remarkable “ABCs of Book Banning” features interviews with children as they process their bafflement about parents removing books on subjects like sexuality, history, racism and feminism from school libraries.
“It’s just telling us to be powerful. I just don’t get what the problem with that is,” one girl says about a book called “Ambitious Girl.”
“They’re still people. They’re still human,” one boy says about a book where two boy penguins pair up and raise an egg. “I just don’t understand.”
Along with their frustration, Beer noted, many of these kids display impressive poise and insight.
“They understand what’s going on,” he said. “They understand that adults are trying to suppress other voices. Some of those kids are wise beyond their years. If those are the sixth-graders of today, maybe there’s a chance for us all.”
Not too cute
While the documentaries tend to be uplifting, several of the live-action films deal with deeply dark situations and themes.
“They had a lot more gravitas to them this year,” Beer said. “They started in one direction and then completely changed direction in a way that really surprised me.”
“Invincible” tells the story of a teenage poet-to-be who refuses to languish in juvenile detention. “Red, White and Blue” traces a journey across state lines for an unexpected, agonized reason. And the incredibly poignant “Knight of Fortune” must be the funniest, most unpredictable and heartwarming story ever set in a morgue.
These films may be short, but the acting is always first-rate. And just when you’ve had enough human tragedy, along comes a company of A-list actors you’ll recognize (Benedict Cumberbatch, Ralph Fiennes and Ben Kingsley) in “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar,” a ridiculously tall Roald Dahl tale brought to surreal life by indy-darling director Wes Anderson.
This year’s animated films are notable for seriousness and for their eye-catching creativity, Beer said.
Thankfully, he added, the usual “cute factor” is dialed way down.
“There’s no domination by Pixar or Disney,” Beer said. Those crowd-pleasing studios are often the ones that win Oscars, but this year the only animated film that comes close to “Disney cute” is also gritty: a World War I story called “War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko.”
“The animation styles are so different. There’s such variety,” Beer said. “It’s the most diverse lineup I’ve ever seen.”
Buy a punch-card pass to see all three Oscar Shorts programs at Kiggins and you’ll get a discount. If you do see all three, you can complete a ballot that makes your Oscar predictions and earn prizes like popcorn and movie tickets.
