Movies: Academy Award-Nominated Animated Short Films 2015

(Drivebycuriosity) - I love animated films. They don´t have rules, anything is possible and often they create astounding worlds full of hilarious things and events. You can see this again in this year`s  five Academy Award nominated animated short films which I enjoyed @ New York´s IFC cinema theater (ifc). As usual they added 4 films to compensate for the short running time.

My favorite of this year`s harvest is "The Bigger Picture" by Daisy Jacobs & Christopher Hees. The British film tells in just 7 minutes the story of 2 brothers who have to take care of their aging mother. I loved their artistic approach. The stylized drafted characters looked  like the murals of street artists who might have been inspired by the paintings of Amadeo Modigliani. The movie`s creators combined the drawn protagonists with animated real objects and other special effects and designed pictures that reminded me of installations in galleries for contemporary art. Well done.

"The Dam Keeper" by Robert Kondo & Dice Tsutsumi (18 minutes/USA) shows a strange and surreal world that could have been emanated from the dream of some impressionist painters (Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet). The protagonist does a peculiar but highly important job for the society that does not appreciate this.

The french film "Sweet Cocoon" (6 minutes/not nominated) introduced the audience to the beauties & dangers in the life of caterpillars & bugs.

The rest of the program also delivered a pleasant mix of funny and surprising ideas. Because of the shortness even the weaker ones were entertaining. But still - my fingers are crossed for "The Bigger Picture".