The Oscar season is just around the corner! So, we’re excited to announce that we’ll be screening some of the short films from both the Animated Shorts category and the Live Action Shorts category that have been nominated for cinema’s most prestigious award.

It’s a great honor to offer our community the chance to see these amazing and creative films before the official Academy Awards broadcast taking place on Sunday, March 15th, 2026!

Some films in this program include some disturbing and mature content and may not be suitable for very young children.

Featured Animated Shorts

Butterfly – written and directed by Florence Miailhe / France. 15 min

A poignant retelling of Olympic swimmer Alfred Nakache’s life, from his rise to fame to surviving Auschwitz, presented as memories flashing back during his final swim.

In the sea, a man swims. As he does, memories come to the surface. From his early childhood to his life as a man, all his memories are linked to water. Some are happy, some glorious, some traumatic. This story will be that of his last swim. It will take us from the source to the river – from the waters of childhood pools to those of swimming pools – from a North African country to the shores of the Mediterranean – from Olympic stadiums to water retention basins – from concentration camps to the dream beaches of Reunion.

Éiru – written and directed by Giovanna Ferrari / Ireland. 13 min

When the water mysteriously disappears from the well in a warrior clan’s village, an intrepid child descends into the belly of the earth to retrieve it. Éiru is the story of a child in search of a challenge, and a goddess in search of a champion.

Forevergreen – written and directed by Nathan Engelhardt and Jeremy Spears / USA. 13 min

A joyful adventure featuring an orphaned bear cub and a fatherly tree turns serious when the cub is tempted by the allure of easy food. Fire and deadly danger ensue as the cub is left bereft of hope and on the verge of a ruinous end, until the sacrificial love of the tree falls into place.

The Girl Who Cried Pearls – directed by Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski / Canada. 17 min

A haunting fable about a girl overwhelmed by sorrow, the boy who loves her, and how greed leads good hearts to wicked deeds.

In Montreal, at the dawn of the 20th century, a poor boy falls in love with a girl whose sorrow turns into pearls. He sells them to a ruthless pawnbroker, who hungers for more. Tempted by greed, the boy must choose between love and fortune. The choice could damn his soul. From the Oscar-nominated team of Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski (Madame Tutli-Putli), this meticulously crafted film is a testament to the magic of stop-motion animation. With handmade puppets, mesmerizing narration by Colm Feore and a haunting score by Patrick Watson, The Girl Who Cried Pearls is a timeless parable of desire, deception and the price of innocence.

Retirement Plan – directed by John Kelly / Ireland. 7 min

Retirement Plan tells the story of Ray (Domhnall Gleeson) as he fantasises about everything he’d love to do in retirement, once he finally has the “time.”

Ray (Domhnall Gleeson) lays out a beautiful life for himself in his retirement plan. He will pursue his curiosities, challenge his limiting beliefs, embrace fear, beauty, even the complexities of wine culture. Ray will check off every box on every list for every interest he ever even half-thought about. He will discover what he loves (Italian red wine), what he hates (camping). He will grow and learn and change rapidly. It’s beautiful and it’s messy and achingly relatable. But Ray is forgetting something. The one thing he treats as flippantly disposable will be the single most rapidly depleting resource of his future self. His healthy-ish, agile enough 40-something-year-old body. Also, actual retirement time is not endless, but guaranteed to be finite.

The Three Sisters – written and directed by Konstantin Bronzit / Israel, Cyprus. 14 min

Three sisters live a lonely life on an isolated island, each in their own small house. One day, circumstances develop in such a way that they are forced to rent out one of the houses.

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83 MIN

The Oscar season is just around the corner! So, we’re excited to announce that we’ll be screening some of the short films from both the Animated Shorts category and the Live Action Shorts category that have been nominated for cinema’s most prestigious award.

It’s a great honor to offer our community the chance to see these amazing and creative films before the official Academy Awards broadcast taking place on Sunday, March 15th, 2026!

Some films in this program contain adult language, adult themes and sensual images. Recommended for persons 17 and up.

Featured Live Action Shorts

Butcher’s Stain – written and directed by Meyer Levinson-Blount / Israel. 26 min

Samir, a Palestinian butcher working at an Israeli supermarket, is accused of tearing down the Israeli hostage posters in the break room. Samir sets out to prove his innocence in order to keep his job he desperately needs.

A Friend of Dorothy – written and directed by Lee Knight / 21 min

Dorothy (BAFTA winner Miriam Margolyes) is a lonely widow whose body is failing, but her mind remains as bright as ever. When 17-year-old JJ (Alistair Nwachukwu) accidentally kicks his football into her garden, he upends Dorothy’s daily routine of pills, prunes and crosswords, and an unlikely friendship blossoms. Despite being worlds apart in every way, the two come to find they have more in common than they could ever imagine.

Jane Austen’s Period Drama – written and directed by Steve Pinder and Julia Aks / USA. 12 min

Jane Austen’s Period Drama is a 2024 English-language short comedy written and directed by Julia Aks and Steve Pinder. The film is a satire on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

England, 1813. Miss Estrogenia “Essy” Talbot gets her period during a long-awaited marriage proposal. Mr. Dickley mistakes the blood for an injury and rushes off to fetch a doctor. While he’s gone, Essy’s sisters plead with her not to imperil her engagement by telling Mr. Dickley the truth. But when he returns, Essy barrels ahead, sharing every little bloody detail.

The Singers – directed, edited, and shot by Sam A. Davis / USA. 18 min

The Singers is a short film adaptation of a 19th-century short story written by Ivan Turgenev, in which a lowly pub full of downtrodden patrons connect unexpectedly through an impromptu sing-off. With a cast comprised of viral video singing talents and other one-of-a-kind personalities from the unlikeliest corners of the internet, the film is an experimental docu-musical hybrid crafted like an improvisational play.

Two People Exchanging Saliva – directed by Natalie Musteata and Alexandre Singh / France, USA. 36 min

Two People Exchanging Saliva explores a dystopian world where kissing is punishable by death.

In a society where kissing is punishable by death, and people pay for things by receiving slaps to the face, Angine, an unhappy woman, shops compulsively in a department store. There, she becomes fascinated by a playful salesgirl. Despite the prohibition of kissing, the two become close, raising the suspicions of a jealous colleague.

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119 MIN

This new neo-noir historical political thriller from Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho (co-director of the 2019 Cannes Jury Prize-winning film Bacurau) takes us back to the tumultuous socio-political hurly-burly of Brazil in the 1970’s!

Ex-professor Armando (played by award-winning Brazilian actor Wagner Moura of Narcos) arrives in Recife as a refugee from the political upheaval spreading throughout Brazil as a result of the strongarm policies of the country’s military dictatorship. He becomes enmeshed in the underground inner-workings of a resistance movement and finds himself the target of hitmen assigned to kill him. Will he be able to escape the turmoil of his homeland and find a place where he can be free..?

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161 MIN

Forty-one years after the release of the groundbreaking mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap, the now estranged bandmates David St. Hubbins, Nigel Tufnel, and Derek Smalls (Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, and Harry Shearer) are forced to reunite for one final concert. Spinal Tap II: The End Continues also marks the resurrection of documentarian Marty Di Bergi (Rob Reiner), who once again tries to capture his favorite metal gods as they contemplate mortality — and the hope that their 12th drummer doesn’t join them in The Great Beyond. Joined by music royalty Paul McCartney and Elton John, Spinal Tap wrestles with their checkered past to put on a concert that they hope will solidify their place in the pantheon of rock ‘n’ roll.

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83 MIN

Amanda Seyfried stars in the latest film from Mona Fastvold (co-writer of The Brutalist, and director of The World to Come) that blends historical narrative and elements of a musical to tell the true story of Ann Lee – founder of the 18th century religious sect the Shakers.

Born in Manchester, England in 1736, Ann Lee grows up with a fixation on piety and sin. When she has a chance encounter with a Quaker couple, she is informed that the Second Coming of Jesus will be in the form of a woman. From that moment onward, Ann’s desire to live a pious life intensifies – especially in the face of the sinning she perceives around her. She not only begins gathering followers to her own, highly-animated brand of worship, but she also comes to believe that she may actually be the messiah herself. Eventually, Ann and her cohort relocate to New England in order to escape persecution; however, as her dedication and deepening faith gets ever more serious, she discovers that the community she has striven to establish is not immune to external attacks and that not everyone shares in her unorthodox beliefs.

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137 MIN

Written and directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal (who received an Oscar nomination in 2021 for her screenplay adaptation of the Elena Ferrante novel The Lost Daughter) returns with a new gothic crime thriller film that blends the best of the Frankenstein mythos with the outlaw attitude of a classic Bonnie & Clyde-style tale!

Set in the Chicago of the 1930’s, The Bride! focuses on the efforts of Dr. Euphoronius (played by Annette Benning) to create a female companion for her more-famous monstrous creation Frankenstein (Christian Bale). Using the body of a murdered woman, Euphoronius and Frank successfully animate the corpse and bring to life a creature known as The Bride. As the romance between Frank and The Bride deepens, the intensity of their relationship spills over into the world at large, prompting singing, dancing, police chases, and a thrilling climax!

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126 MIN

In his feature film debut, YouTuber Mark Fishbach, a.k.a. “Markiplier”, offers up a cinematic adaptation of the sensational online submarine game Iron Lung!

A mysterious event known as “The Quiet Rapture” has beset the Universe, resulting in the disappearance of all known stars, constellations, and habitable planets. Having discovered a distant moon allegedly surfaced with an ocean of blood, humanity, in an act of desperation, employs a convict (Fishbach) to travel there and explore the depths in the hopes of finding out the Rapture’s cause. Trading one prison for another, The Convict is sealed inside a rickety submarine vessel — The Iron Lung — that he’ll pilot through the remnants of humanity’s cosmic existence…with little hope of returning to life as he knew it.

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127 MIN

In the award-winning A24 Studios debut from English filmmaker Harry Lighton, Harry Melling (Harry Potter, The Queen’s Gambit) and Alexander Skargård (Melancholia, The Northman) play characters that come from opposite sides of the personality spectrum to explore a passionate BDSM relationship.

Introvert Colin (Melling) lives a grey life as a middle-aged parking attendant who still resides with his parents. The only splashes of color in his humdrum days are participating in a barbershop quartet and visits to the local pub. That all changes when, on a night out, Colin encounters a devastatingly handsome street biker (Skarsgård) who seems to offer some excitement. The two strike up an affair that quickly leads to a romance. As things progress, Ray proves to be the more dominant of the two, though Colin finds pleasure in playing the submissive role to Ray’s demands. When the death of Colin’s mother threatens to unravel the intricate relationship, the two struggle to decide whether the current dynamic is enough to maintain a long-term companionship.

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107 MIN

Based on one of the most unforgettable stories by Stephen King (who wrote it under the pseudonym “Richard Bachman) comes an adaptation of The Long Walk from Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence!

In an alternate reality (although one not far removed from our own), a dystopic America is ruled over by an authoritarian regime which holds an annual contest for young men whereby they are required to walk at a constant speed of 3 mph. If they slow down or stop, they face a deadly ultimatum: Execution! The only way to win this lethal lottery is be the last one standing.

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108 MIN

Oscar-winning filmmaker, writer, and actor Emerald Fennell offers up a fresh interpretation of Emily Brontë’s timeless novel about love, possession, and revenge!

On the windswept moors of 18th-century West Yorkshire, a daughter of a wealthy landowning family strikes up a strong (and unhealthy bond) with an ethnically ambiguous orphan who has been taken in by her family to reside on their estate known as Wuthering Heights. As the years go by and the lives of the two lovers diverge and reconverge, this tale of Gothic erotic romance plumbs the depths of the dark side of human companionship.

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136 MIN