Jan 23, 2024

Iran and Israel nominated for the first time for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film

The Academy Awards, which has never before recognized animated shorts from the Middle East, today nominated two Middle Eastern animated shorts. They are from Iran and Israel.

The first Iranian animated short to be nominated for an Academy Award is "Our Uniform," directed by Yegane Moghaddam. In this film, an Iranian girl reminisces about her school days, literally through the wrinkles and fabrics of her old uniform. Rather than using paper, canvas, or digital media, Moghaddam painted directly on the fabric used for school uniforms, providing a personal perspective on a piece of clothing that is widely misunderstood in the West.

Israel's work is Tal Kantor's "Letter to a Pig." (The film blends animation techniques with live-action footage to depict different versions of the same story. In this short film, a Holocaust survivor reads a letter to a pig that saved his life to a group of schoolchildren. The different styles emphasize how fallible human memory is and how abstract the images and imaginings recalled are often. [There is another reason Moghaddam and Cantor have made history. They are one of only four female directors nominated in the category this year, the most female directors ever nominated in the animated short film category.

The French film Pachyderme, directed by Stephanie Clément, has a sensitive and oddly calm narration despite its dark subject matter, a story of survival of a young girl facing abuse. The impressive CG animation is a visual metaphor for the dissociative nature of the trauma suffered by the protagonist. The film is directed by Jared and Jerusha Hess, the husband-and-wife team behind such comedy classics as [Napoleon Dynamite] and [Nacho Libre]. However, this should not be confused with a comedy film. The film looks at life through the eyes of a condemned man who has just finished his last meal. The film is divided into parts, each dedicated to a sense and animated by a different artist.

"War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko" is a film by former Pixar animator and director Dave Mullins (Lou), produced by Electroleague in Los Angeles and W? FX in New Zealand. Electroleague in Los Angeles and New Zealand's W?