Over the next month, film lovers will be inundated with speculation and buzz about some of the biggest films of the past year.
The Calgary International Film Festival is offering up two weekends of opportunities to take in some of the shorts, shortlisted for the Academy Awards.
Owing to the distribution of some of those shorts, this may be the only opportunity for Calgarians to see some of those films ahead of March.
“We offer the opportunity to come and see these Oscar-nominated shorts, because there’s no real opportunity to do that in many other places,” said Adam Keresztes, Lead Shorts Programmer for CIFF.
He said Oscar viewing parties have become particularly popular for people interested in movies, but the short films categories have always been a bit of a “black box” for audiences due to the differences in the way those films are distributed.
“They come up on screen and people are like, ‘I have no idea what any of these movies are.’ But this gives you that opportunity to in two hours [per package]—so in six hours of your weekend—you can clear off 15 films, and then you’re really knowledgeable when it comes time for your Oscar polls,” Keresztes said.
As in previous years, CIFF will be showing films in the animated, live-action, and documentary shorts categories, but with a bit of a change-up in presentation for 2025.
“We’re showing one of each package on February 14, 15 and 16, and then again on the 21, 21 and 23, and that’s a bit of a change from where we ran them twice on the same weekend. So we give you two weekends if you’re out of town, or can’t come that one weekend,” Keresztes said.
He said that was a result of feedback from audience members, who wanted to see the shorts but couldn’t make it for either weekend day the shorts were screened on in previous years.
Some predictions for the 2025 Academy Awards
Keresztes said that predicting the winners for the Oscars for the shorts category can be tough, owing exactly to just how hard it is to see all of the short films that are nominated.
Even as a lead programmer for one of the international film festivals that accredits winning shorts to be eligible for an Academy Award nomination.
“We get thousands of them submitted to us from all over the world, but there’s so many more, there’s so many festivals, and there’s so many people making films that it’s almost impossible to see everything or be aware of everything that’s sort of coming around,” he said.
“So, as a programmer, you do your best to try to bring all these amazing films to CIFF so people can come watch them at the festival, but stuff slips through the cracks, or stuff that has been bubbling up at other festivals. This is a great opportunity for us to engage with our audience outside of the festival, and bring the films that they want to see from around the world.”
Oftentimes films will also be premiered at other festivals, or be shown for the first time after CIFF’s festival in September, he said.
Keresztes said one of those films was The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent (dir. Nebojša Slijepčević) which was shown at TIFF.
He said that right now that has gained a lot of buzz to be the Oscar winner, but he hasn’t yet had a chance to see it—so even CIFF’s lead programmer for shorts would be coming down to a live-action package weekend showing to catch all of the nominated films.
“There is a really great one called The Last Ranger about the endangered rhinos in Africa, and this woman who’s in charge of protecting the last remaining rhinos from poachers. I’d say that’s an interesting little backup, but The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent would be my pick. Sight unseen, I guess,” Keresztes said.
In the animated category, two films that played at CIFF 2024, Beautiful Men (dir. Nicolas Keppens) and In the Shadow of the Cypress (dir. Hossein Molayemi and Shirin Sohani) were his two guesses for Oscar wins.
“I think if I had to pick, I’d like to bet with my heart one of the ones that we selected, is probably In the Shadow of the Cypress. It is just a beautiful, no dialogue, beautifully-animated film.”
In the documentary category, Keresztes said that there are three more political documentaries and two music documentaries and that the Academy usually leans towards political documentaries to win.
“There’s one called Death by Numbers that is a follow-up to a film that we played at the festival called Us Kids by Kim Snyder, and it was about the Parkland school shooting,” he said.
“It’s a follow-up with these kids who became political activists after their school shooting, years later. I think that one probably has a good shot at winning.”
Tickets for the CIFF showings are available at www.ciffcalgary.ca.
2025 Academy Awards nominated short films
Animated Shorts
- BEAUTIFUL MEN, Directed by Nicolas Keppens
- IN THE SHADOW OF THE CYPRESS, Directed by Hossein Molayemi & Shirin Sohani
- MAGIC CANDIES, Directed by Daisuke Nishio
- WANDER TO WONDER, Directed by Nina Gantz
- YUCK!, Directed by Loïc Espuche
Live Action Shorts
- A LIEN, Directed by Sam Cutler-Kreutz & David Cutler-Kreutz
- ANUJA, Directed by Adam J. Graves
- I’M NOT A ROBOT, Directed by Victoria Warmerdam
- THE LAST RANGER, Directed by Cindy Lee
- THE MAN WHO COULD NOT REMAIN SILENT, Directed by Nebojša Slijepčević
Documentary Shorts
- DEATH BY NUMBERS, Directed by Kim A. Snyder
- I AM READY, WARDEN, Directed by Smriti Mundhra
- INCIDENT, Directed by Bill Morrison
- INSTRUMENTS OF A BEATING HEART, Directed by Ema Ryan Yamazaki
- THE ONLY GIRL IN THE ORCHESTRA, Directed by Molly O’Brien
