Just in time for the 84th Academy Awards, ShortsHD and InDemand is making a collection of Ocscar-nominated films available to cable and satellite subscribers.
Working with Movies on Demand, ShortsHD, the purveyor dedicated exclusively to short movies, is presenting the best of this year's nominated films in two packages: "Best Animated Short Films" and "Best Live Action Short Films," both of which can be viewed in standard- and high-definition formats.
Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks, Cox, Cablevision, Bresnan and Charter digital-cable customers can see the short movie compilations listed under "The Best 2012 Animated Nominated Shorts" or "The Best 2012 Live-Action Nominated Shorts" banners. While availability and titles are subject to change, the shorts are generally available on systems owned by all of the aforementioned MSOs through March 12, save for Charter, whose subscribers can screen them through March 23.
With Movies on Demand, viewers can watch movies instantly, pause, fast-forward and rewind. TV subscribers can also access ShortsHD's film library, with "Oscar Nominated Short Films 2010" and "Oscar Nominated Short Films 2011" in both live action and animation genres.
The nominated short films will be released individually and as full features on DirecTV, and can be found on iTunes in the US, Canada, UK, France, Germany and other iTunes Stores throughout the world.
More information and trailers for each short film can be found www.shorts.tv/theoscarshorts.
Herewith find the descriptors of some of ShortsHD's current collection:
Best Live Action Short Films
* "Pentecost"- Ireland (12 min, Director: Peter McDonald) - When Damian is forced to serve as an altar boy at an important mass in his local parish he faces a difficult choice: conform to the status quo or serve an extended ban from his passion in life, football.
* "Raju" - Germany/India (25 min, Director: Max Zähle) - A German couple in Kolkata adopts an Indian orphan. When their child suddenly disappears, they realize that they are part of the problem.
* "The Shore"- Ireland (31 min, Director: Terry George) - Joe and Paddy have been divided for 25 years by the tumult of "The Troubles". When Joe returns home to Northern Ireland, his daughter Patricia brings the two men together for a reunion, with unexpected results.
* "Time Freak" - USA (11 min, Director: Andrew Bowler) - A neurotic inventor creates a time machine, only to get caught up traveling around yesterday.
* "Tuba Atlantic" Norway (26 min, Director: Hallvar Witzø) - Seventy-year-old Oskar has only six days left to live, and wants to reconcile with his brother after a lifetime of disagreement.
Best Animated Short Films
* "Dimanche/Sunday"- Canada (10 min, Director: Patrick Doyon) - Every Sunday, it's the same old routine! The train clatters through the village and almost shakes the pictures off the wall. In the church, Dad dreams about his toolbox. And of course later Grandma will get a visit and the animals will meet their fate.
* "A Morning Stroll" - UK (7 mins, Director: Grant Orchard) - When a New Yorker walks past a chicken on his morning stroll, we are left to wonder which one is the real city slicker.
* "Wild Life" - Canada (14 mins, Directors: Amanda Forbis, Wendy Tilby) - In 1909, an Englishman moves to the Canadian frontier, but is singularly unsuited to it. His letters home are much sunnier than the reality, with inter-titles often comparing his fate to that of a comet.
* "The Fantasic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore" - USA (15 mins, Directors: William Joyce & Brandon Oldenburg) - Inspired, in equal measures, by Hurricane Katrina, Buster Keaton, The Wizard of Oz, and a love for books, this film is a poignant, humorous allegory about the curative powers of written story.
Additional
* "Skylight" - Canada (4 min, Director: David Bass) - "Skylight" is a mock animated documentary about the ecological plight of penguins in the Antarctic, possibly foretelling cataclysmic results for the rest of the world.
* "The Hybrid Union" - Ireland (4 min, Director: Serguei Kouchnerov) - "The Hybrid Union" highlights the ongoing environmental crisis by emphasizing the global issues that overshadow the future... it doesn't matter what caused the climate change. We still need clean air and water.
* "Nullabor" - Australia (11 min, Director: Alister Lockhart, Patrick Sarell)- "Nullabor" is an animated road-trip movie set across the vast and barren landscape of Australia's Nullarbor Plain.
* "Amazonia" - Australia (5 min, Director: Sam Chen)- In the dangerous world of the Amazon Rainforest, finding a meal proves to be an impossible task for a little treefrog named Bounce. His luck changes when he meets Biggy, a blue-bellied treefrog who takes him under his guidance and shows him the ways of the jungle.
