The 2022 Oscar-Nominated Shorts: Live Action

For the 17th consecutive year, Shorts HD and Magnolia Pictures present the Oscar-Nominated Short Films. With all three categories offered – Animated, Live Action and Documentary – this is your annual chance to predict the winners (and have the edge in your Oscar pool)! A perennial hit with audiences around the country and the world, don’t miss this year’s selection of shorts. The Academy Awards take place Sunday, March 27th.

LIVE ACTION SHORTS (Running Time: 121 minutes)

On My Mind – Martin Strange-Hansen and Kim Magnusson, Denmark, 18 min.

Please Hold – K.D. Dávila and Levin Menekse, USA, 19 min.

The Dress – Tadeusz Łysiak and Maciej Ślesicki, Poland, 30 min.

The Long Goodbye – Aneil Karia and Riz Ahmed, UK/Netherlands, 12 min.

Ala Kachuu - Take and Run – Maria Brendle and Nadine Lüchinger, Kyrgyzstan/Switzerland, 38 min.

Synopses:

ON MY MIND ~ Henrik wants to sing a song for his wife. It has to be today, it has to be now. It’s a question of life, death and karaoke.

PLEASE HOLD ~ In the not-so-distant future, Mateo (20s, Latino) is arrested by a police drone without explanation. Finding himself locked in a fully automated jail with no means of recourse, Mateo realizes he’s fallen through some kind of crack in the system. To get out alive he’ll have to go head-to-head with the labyrinthine, computerized bureaucracy of the privatized American justice system, in search of an actual human being who can set things right.

THE DRESS ~ Lust, sexuality and physicality. These are the deepest desires virgin Julia suppresses while working at a wayside motel. That is until she crosses paths with a handsome truck driver, who soon becomes the object of her fantasies…

THE LONG GOODBYE ~ Riz and his family are in the middle of preparing a wedding celebration when the events unfolding in the outside world arrive suddenly on their doorstep. The result is a devastating and visceral feat of filmmaking, and a poignant poetic cry from the heart.

ALA KACHUU ~ TAKE AND RUN~ Sezim, 19 years old, wants to fulfill her dream of studying in the Kyrgyz capital when she gets kidnapped by a group of young men and taken to the hinterland. There, she’s forced to marry a stranger. If she refuses the marriage, she is threatened with social stigmatization and exclusion. Torn between her desire for freedom and the constraints of Kyrgyz culture, Sezim desperately seeks a way out.