Oscar Shorts ‘06
by
Gil Mansergh

Once again Sonoma County has fortunate opportunity to serve as one of the select venues which show the short features nominated for Academy Awards. Ky Boyd and the rest of his crew at Rialto Cinemas in Santa Rosa have made a special arrangement with Magnolia Films and Apollo Cinemas to screen the nominees from three different categories for a single week starting February 23rd. (The Oscar ceremony is on the evening of the 25th). Seperate admissions are being charged for the Best Documentary Short Subject, Best Live Action Short Subject, and the ever popular Best Animated Short Film.

In previous years, Pixar studios had not allowed it’s films to be packaged with the other animated short nominees for this special event. But as of press time, the Pixar 3-D short “Lifted” will be on screen at the Rialto. Already scheduled to be packaged this summer with Pixar’s feature length film “Ratatouille,” It has previously been viewed by the public only one time (at the Chicago Film Festival) where it was described as “A bumbling young alien student from a distant world tests the patience of an increasingly weary instructor as he attempts a first-time abduction of a innocently slumbering farmer.” Pixar will be competing with it’s parent studio, Disney for an Oscar statue, since the Mouse Factory has been nominated for their classic 2-D animated retelling of Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Little Match Girl.” Other nominees include Liv Ullman narrating “The Danish Poet,” from the National Film Board of Canada, a Hungarian film about a tuxedo-wearing bird entitled “Maestro,” and finally a starring role for Scrat, the prehistoric rodent addicted to acorns who is always an audience favorite in 20th Century Fox’s “Ice Age” features.

Nominees for the Best live action short film include “Binta and the Great Idea (Binta Y La Gran Idea),” in which a seven-year-old African girl tells stories about her cousin who longs to go to school and her father who has an idea which just might change the world. “Éramos Pocos (One Too Many),” which starts with a woman leaving her husband and grown son because they don’t help with housework. As a solution, they turn to the absent woman’s mother for help. “Helmer & Son,” where a son is called to a Norwegian rest home to entice his father to unlock the door and come out of an armoire. “The Saviour” a quirky Australian film about a door-to-door Mormon evangelist who is love with a married woman. And finally “West Bank Story” a “West Side Story” inspired musical comedy about competing falafel stands in Israel’s West Bank.

The nominated Documentary Short Subjects include “The Blood of Yingzhou District“
An unblinking focus on the sorrow-filled life of Gao Jun a Chinese AIDS orphan whose parents sold their blood for a few dollars, were infected by contaminated needles, and died. Afraid of catching AIDS, fearful villagers and family members shun the little boy who must basically raise himself. “Recycled Life” takes us to the largest (and most toxic) dump in Central America, where over 4000 people get their food, shelter and income by recycling the millions of tons of trash dumped their each year. Narrator James Olmos tries hard to point out the positive aspects of this marginal existence.
In sharp contrast to the Guatemala City dump is “Rehearsing a Dream” where talented high school students gather to learn first hand from world-class dancers, singers, musicians, comics (and even mimes) how to hone their talents. And finally, there is “Two Hands,” a biography of pianist Leon Fleischer who had to learn to play using only his left hand after a mysterious illness cost him the use of his right .