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Park City Film follows film-festival week with short-film screenings

Laura Nix and Colette Sandstedt’s “Walk Run Cha-Cha” will be one of the Oscar-nominated documentary shorts screened by Park City Film this weekend.
Courtesy of ShortsTV

What: Oscar-nominated shorts

When: 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, with an optional 6 p.m. Saturday Oscar Party; 6 p.m. Sunday

Where: Park City Library’s Jim Santy Auditorium, 1255 Park Ave.

Cost: $8 for general admission; $7 for students and senior citizens; Saturday ticket prices includes an option for admission to the Oscar party at 6 p.m. and screenings for $50

Web: parkcityfilm.org

Park City Film’s Oscar-nominated shorts schedule

Friday, Feb. 7: Animated Shorts (80 min, Rated PG-13)

• “Daughter” (“Dcera”) by Daria Kashcheeva, Czechia, 15 minutes

• “Hair Love” by Matthew A. Cherry and Karen Rupert Toliver, U.S.A., 7 minutes

• “Kitbull” by Rosana Sullivan and Kathryn Hendrickson, U.S.A. 9 minutes

• “Memorable” by Bruno Collet and Jean-François Le Corre, France, 12 minutes

• “Sister” by Siqi Song, U.S.A. 8 minutes

Additional animated shorts to be screened Friday include

• “Henrietta Bulkowski” by Rachel Johnson, U.S.A. 16 minutes

• “The Bird and the Whale” by Carol Freeman, Ireland, 6 minutes

• “Hors Piste” by Leo Brunel, Loris Cavalier, France, 5 minutes

• “Maestro” by Florian Babikian and Victor Caire, France, 2 minutes

Saturday, Feb. 8: Documentary Shorts (125 min, Rated R)

• “Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (if you’re a girl)” by Carol Dysinger and Elena Andreicheva, U.K. 40 minutes

• “Life Overtakes Me” by John Haptas and Kristine Samuelson, U.S.A., 37 minutes

• “St. Louis Superman” by Smriti Mundhra and Sami Khan, U.S.A., 28 minutes

• “Walk Run Cha-Cha” by Laura Nix and Colette Sandstedt, U.S.A., 20 minutes

Sunday, Feb. 9: Live Action Shorts (101 min, Rated R)

• “A Sister” by Delphine Girard, Belgium, 16 minutes

• “Brotherhood” by Meryam Joobeur and Maria Gracia Turgeon, Tunisia/Canada, 25 minutes

• “Nefta Football Club” by Yves Piat and Damien Megherbi, France, 17 minutes

• “Saria” by Bryan Buckley and Matt Lefebvre, U.S.A., 23 minutes

• “The Neighbor’s Window” by Marshall Curry, U.S.A., 20 minutes

Source: Park City Film

The celebration of film continues on the heels of Sundance and Slamdance festivals when Park City Film screens a weekend of Academy Award-nominated short films from Friday through Sunday at the Park City Library’s Jim Santy Auditorium.

The screenings are meant to coincide with the 92nd Academy Awards that will take place Sunday night, said Katharine Wang, Park City Film executive director. (See accompanying list for film titles).

“These are films you may not see outside the festival circuits, so every year we try to bring them back on Oscar weekend,” Wang said. “The Academy Awards have greatly advanced their schedule this year, and for the first time, the awards are going to be held at the beginning of February.”



Park City Film will show a different collection of shorts each night due to time constraints, she said.

They don’t have a lot of dead time to hit all the notes and show a full story arc…” Katharine Wang, Park City Film executive director

Friday is animated shorts night, and will be rated PG-13, according to Wang.



“The animated films are not necessarily only for children,” she said. “Animated films are used in other countries to address issues and are also appropriate for teens and adults.”

Since the Oscar-nominated animated shorts are not as long as other short films, Park City Film will add additional films to round out the evening.

“These additional films have been well-regarded throughout the year, but didn’t receive nominations,” Wang said.

Saturday’s screenings will feature documentary short films, and the evening will be rated R for violence, language and adult themes.

“We usually have to curate these, because they are generally the longer of the short films,” Wang said. “If we screened all of the documentaries, the runtime would be close to four hours. So we make an artistic choice as to which one we may cut.”

Saturday is also Park City Film’s annual Oscar Party that runs from 6-8 p.m. in the Community Room across the hall from the theater. The party runs from 6-8 p.m., prior to the screenings.

Tickets are $50 for general admission and $40 for Park City FIlm members. The price will include food and drink and admission to the screenings. People can also just attend the screenings, and tickets for that are a regular price of $8.

“The Oscar Party is another fundraiser for us, and it’s kind of a way to celebrate the best shorts of the year,” Wang said.

Documentary shorts are usually the strongest and thought-provoking of the collections, and tend to align with the types of feature films Park City Film screens throughout the year, she said.

“These documentaries can be hard-hitting, topical, and can invite conversation,” Wang said. “So we felt having our Oscar party before the screening allows the audience members time to get to know each other or catch up, because they sometimes stay after to talk about the films they have just seen. And it’s always great to see that.”

The live-action shorts will screen Sunday, and the evening will be also rated R for violence, language and adult themes.

“These shorts are very different and are generally international in scope,” Wang said. “Because they don’t take as long to make as feature films, shorts tend to be topical and on point of the current zeitgeist. It’s always interesting to the reflectivity of culture.”

Wang enjoys the short-film format, and said the films are the “gems, or the poetry of filmmaking.”

Courtesy of ShortsTV

“They are incredibly difficult to do, because filmmakers have to be concise,” she said. “They don’t have a lot of dead time to hit all the notes and show a full story arc.”

Short films are also how some feature filmmakers get their start in the industry, Wang said.

Damien Chazelle’s Oscar-winning “Whiplash,” started out as a short film, before expanding into a feature, she said.

“With short films, you sometimes see the beginning of a talent,” she said.

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