88th Academy Awards nominations have been announced!
The 88th Academy Awards nominations were announced worldwide via a live stream on youtube last night (Fri. 15th Japan time)!
In terms of feature film, we are interested to see that Jennifer Lawrence, a regular at the Oscars, and Saoirse Ronan, star of “Lovely Bones” (2009), have both been nominated for the Actress in a Leading Role category. Meanwhile, Leonardo DiCaprio has secured a nomination for Actor in a Leading Role, and audiences around the world are waiting with bated breath to find out if he will receive this highly coveted award. It seems that his film, “The Revenant”, is currently leading the competition, having received 12 nominations.
So, how about the short film categories?
“WE CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT COSMOS” has been nominated for the animated short film category. The director Konstantin Bronzit’s previous work, “The God”, has been screened at Brillia Short Shorts Theater here in Japan.
View the full nominations lineup:
SHORT FILM (ANIMATED) nominees
BEAR STORY
Gabriel Osorio and Pato Escala
FILM SYNOPSIS
Every day, a melancholy old bear takes a mechanical diorama that he has created out to his street corner. For a coin, passersby can look into the peephole of his invention, which tells the story of a circus bear who longs to escape and return to the family from which he was taken.
PROLOGUE
Richard Williams and Imogen Sutton
FILM SYNOPSIS
2,400 years ago, four warriors — two Spartan and two Athenian — battle to the death in an intense struggle witnessed by a little girl, who then runs to her grandmother for comfort.
SANJAY’S SUPER TEAM
Sanjay Patel and Nicole Grindle
FILM SYNOPSIS
Young Sanjay, a first-generation Indian-American, is obsessed with television, cartoons and his superhero action figures. He is reluctant to spend time in daily prayers with his devout Hindu father, but a flight of imagination helps him develop a new perspective that he and his father can both embrace.
WE CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT COSMOS
Konstantin Bronzit
FILM SYNOPSIS
Two best friends have dreamed since childhood of becoming cosmonauts, and together they endure the rigors of training and public scrutiny, and make the sacrifices necessary to achieve their shared goal.
WORLD OF TOMORROW
Don Hertzfeldt
FILM SYNOPSIS
A little girl named Emily is taken on a fantastical tour of her distant future by a surprising visitor who reveals unnerving secrets about humanity’s fate.
SHORT FILM (LIVE ACTION) nominees
AVE MARIA
Basil Khalil and Eric Dupont
FILM SYNOPSIS
Five nuns living in the West Bank find their routine disrupted when the car of a family of Israeli settlers breaks down outside the convent. Unable to use the telephone due to Sabbath restrictions, the family needs help from the nuns, but the sisters’ vow of silence requires them to work with their visitors to find an unorthodox solution.
DAY ONE
Henry Hughes
FILM SYNOPSIS
On the heels of a painful divorce, an Afghan-American woman joins the U.S. military as an interpreter and is sent to Afghanistan. On her first mission, she accompanies troops pursuing a bomb-maker, and must bridge the gender and culture gap to help the man’s pregnant wife when she goes into labor.
EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY (ALLES WIRD GUT)
Patrick Vollrath
FILM SYNOPSIS
Michael, a divorced father devoted to his eight-year-old daughter, Lea, picks her up for their usual weekend together. At first it feels like a normal visit, but Lea soon realizes that something is different, and so begins a fateful journey.
SHOK
Jamie Donoughue
FILM SYNOPSIS
In Kosovo in 1998, two young boys are best friends living normal lives, but as war engulfs their country, their daily existence becomes filled with violence and fear. Soon, the choices they make threaten not only their friendship, but their families and their lives.
STUTTERER
Benjamin Cleary and Serena Armitage
FILM SYNOPSIS
For a lonely typographer, an online relationship has provided a much-needed connection without revealing the speech impediment that has kept him isolated. Now, however, he is faced with the proposition of meeting his online paramour in the flesh, and thereby revealing the truth about himself.