Over the past two decades, the Academy Awards have been in a constant state of flux: There are now 10 best picture nominees instead of five, the membership has grown (and diversified) by more than 50% in that time, streaming releases now routinely vie for the top prize. Amid all that change, one constant remains: For 20 years, ShortsTV has been working with the short film nominees to get their work seen around the country. The theatrical audience for those releases grows each year, to the point that the “2025 Oscar Nominated Short Films: Live Action” package is on track to outgross best picture nominee “Nickel Boys” at the box office.
First up in an all-around strong (and impressively international) selection is the Croatian short that won the Palme d’Or at Cannes last year, “The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent.” Set aboard a train traveling through Bosnia in 1993, director Nebojša Slijepčević’s fact-based thriller puts us in the position of the bewildered passengers, confused and intimidated when the train stops and heavily armed men come aboard to separate Muslim travelers. Drawing from eyewitness testimonies, Slijepčević focuses on an average guy named Dragan (Goran Bogdan), who recognizes that what’s happening is wrong. Given the film’s title, we’re hoping to see him act heroically, though the gun-wielding officer (French actor Alexis Manenti) is so threatening, Dragan doesn’t dare. And so we’re left to share in the shame of what happens. The film is dedicated to Tomo Buzov, a veteran who paid dearly for challenging the soldiers — and a role model in times when resistance becomes a moral obligation.
In recent years, the Academy has used the shorts categories to amplify all kinds of political messages. That’s one way for voters to show their values, but also a strange hijacking of an award that ought to recognize the most talented up-and-coming directors. This year, there’s real talent behind the cause-based noms, which can be seen in Adam J. Graves’ “Anuja,” named for its 9-year-old protagonist (first-time performer Sajda Pathan), illegally employed in a shady Indian garment factory. The plot is slender and shameless, as the streetwise Anuja navigates a realm of Dickensian adults — some looking to exploit her, others determined to steer Anuja to a better future. The movie unravels just as it nears Anuja’s climactic decision, but it’s the backstory that matters most here anyway: Working with the Salaam Baalak Trust, Graves cast a girl who’d been rescued from a similar fate to play Anuja, using the project to inspire kids in similar circumstances.
As it happens, the only nominee chosen solely on the strength of its filmmaking (as opposed to the worthiness of its activist cause) is Dutch writer-director Victoria Warmerdam’s ultra-clever 22-minute “I’m Not a Robot.” In a stylish modern office building, Lara (Ellen Parren) sits at her computer listening to a cover of “Creep,” a song whose lyrics take on new relevance as the film unfolds. Faced with one of those annoying CAPTCHA prompts on her screen, Lara clicks as directed, but keeps failing the test. We’ve all been there, wasting time on mind-numbing tests meant to separate humans from bots, but Warmerdam introduces a twist: What if Lara really were a bot, and this was how she realized it? It’s a novel approach to the AI conversation and one that puts audiences in the shoes of a possible “replicant” as self-doubts plunge her into an existential tailspin. Unexpected, original and eminently expandable, “Robot” feels like the prototype for a terrific feature about an all-new category of gaslighting.
Exposing a cruel strategy that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement uses to catch non-citizens, sibling filmmakers David and Sam Cutler-Kreutz’s “A Lien” is an effective example of a fairly common format used in social-justice cinema. Basically, the idea is to follow a bureaucratic nightmare in practically real-time, criticizing the process simply by revealing how cumbersome and impersonal it all seems. In what plays like a 15-minute panic attack, the brothers observe a husband and wife (William Martinez and Victoria Ratermanis) rushing to make a mandatory immigration interview, dragging their adorable young daughter through the ringer. The film doesn’t care about the rules he’s broken, focusing instead on the ones he’s now trying to follow in order to remain in the country — the irony being, ICE officers are waiting to arrest him at the appointment. The tight widescreen framing and shaky handheld shooting style amplify the stress of a situation that’s all the more potent for not trying to pin a happy ending on such an upsetting policy.
By contrast, Cindy Lee’s urgent 28-minute “The Last Ranger” takes us into the proverbial heart of darkness — an African wildlife preserve where poachers deprive rhinos of their horns — and somehow manages to leave us feeling optimistic about a seemingly impossible fight. Young Litha (Liyabona Mroqoza) loves the endangered local animals and looks up to Khusi (Avumile Qongqo), a woman who’s dedicated her life to protecting them. One day, this park ranger picks up Litha and brings her along to work, intending to show the girl a live rhinoceros. Instead, they wind up witnessing the very kind of attack Khusi’s sworn to prevent. It’s easy to imagine the audience-friendly version of this story, but Lee admires the real-life sacrifice of such heroes too much to sanitize it, including actual footage of a rhino left for dead … and an uplifting reunion with that same animal over the end credits.
