2023 Oscar Nominated Shorts – Live Action
The 2023 Oscar Nominated Live Action shorts all hail from Europe, although Italy’s is a ‘Disney original film’ U.S. coproduction. The selections, which include two comedies, two dramas and a dramedy, invite a sense of déjà vu, “The Red Suitcase” reminiscent of last year’s entry from Switzerland, Norway’s “Night Ride, like Poland’s 2022 “The Dress,” starring a little person and once again inviting empathy, albeit with a more upbeat ending. All are female led stories with the exception of the Irish entry whose action initiates with a mother’s death.
Laura's Review: B+
An Irish Goodbye
Ireland is well represented at 2023’s Oscars with “The Banshees of Inisherin’s” nine nominations and an International nomination for “The Quiet Girl.” Their live action short gives the country an eleven category shot at winning. This humorous tale from Tom Berkeley and Ross White begins with Father O’Shea honking at a dead rabbit on a rural road as he shepherds estranged brothers Lorcan, sitting in the back clutching an oversized urn, and Turlough to their deceased mother’s farm to offer a blessing. He also offers a list written by their mother found when the mortician ‘fumbled around in her jeans.’ Lorcan, who has Down’s Syndrome, is angry about Turlough’s plan to sell the farm and send his brother off to live with an aunt, but says he’ll agree to the plan if Turlough helps him honor their mother’s bucket list. There are one hundred entries, including such things as posing in the nude for a painting and sky diving. “An Irish Goodbye” isn’t the most original of stories, but Berkeley and White mine it well for humor and well-earned sentiment. B
Ivalu
Anders Walter addresses two social issues with his Greenland set tale. When Pipaluk awakens to find her sister missing, she doesn’t get much 
comfort or support from their dad. The young indigenous girl can’t find Ivalu at school, nor has her grandmother seen her. With a visit from the queen coming up, Pipaluk needs a ceremonial costume and dad tells her to wear Ivalu’s as it would ‘serve her right for running away.’ After visiting the mountains, an ice cave and the fishing site where Ivalu told her a sea goddess dwelled, a raven leads her to an old military site they never visited and Pipaluk remembers just who admired her sister when she proudly wore her costume on her confirmation day. This affecting entry from Denmark features wild landscapes, indigenous myths and a fine performance from young Mila Heilmann Kreutzmann. B
Le Pupille
Alice Rohrwacher (“The Wonders,” “Happy as Lazarro”) wrote and directed what she humorously refers to as ‘a film clumsily based on a letter sent to Goffredo Fofi from her friend,’ a missive written by ‘My Brilliant Friend’s’ Elsa Morante. This Italian/US coproduction visits a Catholic boarding school during the holidays where Serafina’s (Melissa Falasconi) refusal to fall in line with Mother Superior’s (Alba Rohrwacher) underhanded appeal to rob them of an elaborate, donated Christmas cake metes unintended justice for unpaid laborers. This one is offbeat, Rohrwacher employing whimsical touches like an animated paper clock, an adorable stray dachshund and frozen frames that accentuate absurdity. The filmmaker also gives us a real look at an underfunded boarding school in the 1940’s, one whose stone structure makes us feel its chill. Falasconi has a face for the ages and the girls’ Nativity tableau, used to raise funds, is hilarious (they score a bag of pears, 27 lire and that cake, gifted by a wealthy woman (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) begging for prayers for her missing lover). This one’s the winner in my book. A-
Night Ride
Norway’s entry is also set at Christmastime. At the end of a tram line on a cold, snowy night, Ebba (Sigrid Kandal Husjord) is astonished when the driver won’t allow her to wait inside unless he’s present, which he won’t be 
for another half hour. Incensed, Ebba boards it anyway and, emboldened, pilots it away, amazed as she traverses a bridge and rolls into a town. She even picks up passengers, despite having missed the platform, but when an obnoxious guy discovers the woman he’s been hitting on isn’t who he thought she was, things begin to get ugly and little person Ebba finds herself standing up for someone else who’s different. Eirik Tveiten upends our expectations with Ebba’s bold ingenuity and concludes with warmth and humor. B+
The Red Suitcase
A young woman in a hajib standing alone at an airport luggage carousel calls her father to inform him she’s still on the plane. After collecting her titular suitcase, the panicked woman is stopped by two customs’ agents who open her bag to reveal artist’s supplies and some impressive drawings. But she’s reluctant to leave the area, especially after spying a man holding flowers on the opposite side of the doors and so she peels off her head scarf, slipping by, her face shrouded by her hair. The prospective bride eludes her intended, but the price she pays is steep. Cyrus Neshvad pays homage to the women of Iran currently protesting their oppressive regime with this tense tale of a young girl trying to escape an arranged marriage at the Luxembourg airport. B
Robin's Review: B
An Irish Goodbye
Lorcan (James Martin) and Turlough (Seamus O’Hara), long estranged brothers, get together for a sad, sad event: their beloved mom has died. Will the brothers heal their differences and reunite once again or will they sell the family farm and separate forever in “An Irish Goodbye”? B-
Ivalu
On the wild tundra of Greenland, young Pipaluk (Mila Heilmann Kreutzmann) discovers that her beloved older sister is missing. She treks out into the wilderness to find her and, in flashbacks, we get to the bottom of the disappearance of “Ivula.”
What starts out as a missing sister story turns very harsh as it deals with the horror, through Pipaluk’s young eyes, of child sexual abuse perpetrated by their father. It strikes home how universal this examination of abuse is. B
Le pupille
Italy, near the end of the war, is in ruins and life is hard for the young girls of a Catholic orphanage run by nuns, The black-and-whites rule with an iron fist but one young rebel, Seraphina, stands up to the intolerable conditions. She wants her cake and eat it, too, in “Le pupille.”
This serio-comic look at life in a poor orphanage as the war draws to a close is really the examination of the making of a young rebel. Little Seraphina sees though the hypocrisy of the church and strikes out when the kind donation to the orphanage by a well-to-do lady, a beautiful big cake – made with 70 eggs, it is often noted – is about to be snatched away and given to the bishop. The diminutive rebel will have nothing to do with that plan. The results are amusing, indeed. B
Night Ride
Ebba (Sigrid Kandal Husjord), a little person, waits for a tram on a frigid night. When it arrives, the driver takes a break and will not let her on board without him. Cold and undeterred, she takes matters into her own hands, gets into the driver’s seat and starts pushing buttons. Suddenly, she is driving the tram in “Nattrikken (Night Ride).”
But, this is not the story of a spontaneous joy ride. There is much more as Ebba’s decision leads to the scary attack of a trans person and the newly minted driver musters up the courage, at great danger to herself, and takes matters into her own little hands. You might enjoy how it turns out. B+
The Red Suitcase
A 16-year old Muslim woman arrives at Luxembourg’s airport. She is afraid to leave the customs area and it is unclear why. Then, slowly, we understand her fear and root for her to get away and start a new life in “The Red Suitcase.” B
Shorts.tv releases the 2023 Oscar Nominated Shorts - Live Action in theaters on 2/17/23.
