Skip to main content
Anuja film image; two girls hugging joyously

Oscar® Shorts 2025: Live Action

Image: Anuja

This event has passed

Every year VIFF Centre showcases the short film nominees across three categories: Best Live Action Short, Best Animated Short, and Best Short Documentary. While feature films seem to stretch longer and longer and audiences remain hungry to binge endless TV series, these mini masterpieces remind us that brevity is the soul of wit, and less can be more. This year’s live action shorts include films from India, South Africa, the USA, the Netherlands, and Croatia about rhinos, robots, and testing times.

The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent
, Nebojša Slijepčević and Danijel Pek, Croatia, 13 min: A passenger train from Belgrade to Bar is stopped by paramilitary forces in an ethnic cleansing operation, in a dramatization of the Štrpci massacre of 1993

Anuja, Adam J. Graves and Suchitra Mattai, US/India, 22 min: Nine-year-old Anuja works in a garment factory with her older sister Palak. When she’s given the opportunity to take an exam that could get her into a boarding school, she must make a tough choice about her future.

I’m Not a Robot, Victoria Warmerdam and Trent, Netherlands/Belgium, 22 min: After repeatedly failing Captcha tests, a music producer named Lara becomes obsessed with a disturbing question: could she be a robot?

A Lien, Sam Cutler-Kreutz and David Cutler-Kreutz, USA, 15 min: On the day of their green card interview, a young couple confronts a dangerous immigration process.

The Last Ranger, Cindy Lee and Darwin Shaw, South Africa, 28 min: A young South African girl, Litha, is being introduced to game reserve by the last remaining ranger when they are ambushed by poachers, leading to a battle to protect the rhinos.

Director

Various

Country of Origin

Various

Year

2024

Language

Various

19+
104 min
Shorts

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Also Playing

Desert of Namibia

Dir. Yôko Yamanaka
137 min

A prizewinner at Cannes, Yôko Yamanaka's second film is an acerbic portrait of an arrogant, attractive, diffident, "difficult" 21-year-old woman, Kana (a mesmerizing Yuumi Kawai), who numbly drifts between boyfriends, leaving wreckage in her wake.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Amiko

Dir. Yôko Yamanaka
66 min

Teenage rebel Amiko loves Radiohead but hates everything else about her boring and banal existence -- and her provincial high school above all. Then she meets a boy... The micro-budget debut of 19-year-old Desert of Namibia director Yôko Yamanaka.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Jinpa

Dir. Pema Tseden
87 min

Produced by Wong Kar-wai, Pema Tseden's offbeat fable is part road movie, part Tibetan western, as the fates of two men named Jinpa intertwine and weighty moral questions of karma and compassion hang in the balance.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Moonlight

Dir. Barry Jenkins
142 min

Three chapters in the life of Chiron, a young black man grappling with his identity and sexuality in a rough Miami neighborhood. Barry Jenkins' exploration of vulnerability and love offers a refreshing alternative to traditional portrayals of masculinity. Screening with the short Strange Way of Life.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema