February 8th, 2019 - 1:00 pm
The Rehoboth Beach Film Society will be offering several screenings of the Oscar® nominees for Best Live Action Short Film, Best Animated Short Film, and Best Documentary (Short Subject) Film, beginning Friday, February 8, 2019. Check www.rehobothfilm.com for screening times.
Join the annual tradition of watching the Oscar® contenders and casting your vote for the winner.
The nominees for Best Live Action Short films are:
“Detainment” is the controversial story of two ten year-old boys detained by police under suspicion of abducting and murdering a toddler. A true story based on interview transcripts from the James Bulger case, which shocked the world in 1993, and continues to incite public outrage across the UK today. [2018, Ireland, 30 min, Not Rated].
“Fauve” is set in a surface mine, where two boys sink into a seemingly innocent power game, with Mother Nature as the sole observer. Alone in the wild the two boys play around. Complicity evolves into a confrontation where one wants to have power over the other. Taking proportions larger than nature, this game will not prove as harmless as they thought. [2018, Canada, in French with English subtitles, 16 min, Not Rated].
“Marguerite” tells the story of the friendship that develops between an aging woman and her nurse, inspiring the woman to unearth unacknowledged longing and make peace with her past. [2017, Canada, 19 min, Not Rated].
“Madre (Mother)” centers on a seemingly innocent phone call. A single mother receives a call from her seven-year-old son who is on vacation with his father in the French Basque country. Hearing from him is a cause for joy, but soon it becomes a nightmare when the child tells her that he is alone and cannot find his father. [2017, Spain, in Spanish with English subtitles, 19 min, Not Rated].
“Skin” is the story of a moment in a small supermarket in a blue-collar town. A black man smiles at a 10-year-old white boy across the checkout aisle. This innocuous act sends two gangs into a ruthless war that ends with a shocking backlash. [2018, US, 20 min, Not Rated].
Screenings for Best Live Action short films are 1:00 pm Friday (Feb 8), 7:00 pm on Saturday (Feb 9), 1:00 pm Wednesday (Feb 13), and 4:00 pm Thursday (Feb 14).
The nominees for Best Animated Short films are:
In “Animal Behavior”, five animals meet regularly to discuss their inner angst in a group therapy session led by Dr. Clement, a canine psychotherapist. [2018, Canada, 14 min, Not Rated].
“Bao” is the story of an aging Chinese mom suffering from empty nest syndrome who gets another chance at motherhood when one of her dumplings springs to life. Mom excitedly welcomes this new bundle of joy into her life, but Dumpling starts growing up fast, and Mom must come to the bittersweet revelation that nothing stays cute and small forever. [2018, US, 8 min, Not Rated].
“Late Afternoon” focuses on Emily, an elderly woman who lives between two states—the past and the present. She journeys into an inner world, reliving moments from her life, searching for a connection within her vivid, but fragmented memories. [2017, Ireland, 10 min, Not Rated].
“One Small Step” is about Luna, a vibrant young Chinese American girl who dreams of becoming an astronaut. From the day she witnesses a rocket launching into space on TV, Luna is driven to reach for the stars. In the big city, Luna lives with her loving father Chu, who supports her with a humble shoe repair business he runs out of his garage. As Luna grows up, she enters college, facing adversity of all kinds in pursuit of her dreams. [2018, US/China, 8 min, Not Rated].
“Weekends” is the story of a young boy shuffling between the homes of his recently divorced parents. Surreal dream-like moments mix with the domestic realities of a broken family in this hand-animated film set in 1980’s Toronto. [2017, US, 15 min, Not Rated].
Screenings for Best Animated Short films are 7:00 pm Friday (Feb 8) and 3:00 pm Sunday (Feb 10).
The nominees for Best Documentary Short films – Part A are:
In “Black Sheep”, November 27, 2000 is the day that everything changed for Cornelius Walker. This was the day when Damilola Taylor was killed. Damilola was 11, the same age as Cornelius. He lived five minutes away. He had the same skin color. Cornelius’s mother, scared for her son’s safety, moved their family out of London. Cornelius suddenly found himself living on a white estate run by racists. But rather than fight them, Cornelius decided to become more like the people who hated him. They became his family and kept him safe. But internally Cornelius struggled to marry his real identity with the one he had acquired.
Filmed with non-actors in locations where the real events took place 15 years ago, “Black Sheep” blurs the boundaries between documentary and fiction to pose difficult and highly topical questions about race and identity. Who decides what makes us who we are? And what compromises are we prepared to make in order to fit in? [2018, UK, 27 min, Not Rated].
“End Game” asks the question: Where will loved ones spend their last days? Who will be in the room? What feelings and secrets need to be shared with family before it is too late? Acclaimed Academy Award®-winning filmmakers Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (“The Times of Harvey Milk”, “The Celluloid Closet”, “Paragraph 175”) probe these questions and more in the context of two San Francisco Bay Area medical facilities on the forefront of creating new paradigms for end of life decisions with grace. [2018, US, 40 min, PG].
Screenings for Best Documentary Short films Part A are 4:30 pm Saturday (Feb 9) and 7:00 pm Thursday (Feb 14).
The nominees for Best Documentary Short films – Part B are:
“Lifeboat” chronicles the volunteers from a German non-profit who risk the waves of the Mediterranean to pluck refugees from sinking rafts pushing off from Libya in the middle of the night. “Lifeboat” puts a human face on one of the world’s greatest crises, and provides a spark of hope surrounding how civil society can intervene in the refugee crisis in a meaningful way. [2018, US, 34 min, Not Rated].
“A Night at the Garden” takes place in 1939, when 20,000 Americans rallied in New York’s Madison Square Garden to celebrate the rise of Nazism – an event largely forgotten from American history. “A Night at the Garden”, made entirely from archival footage filmed that night, transports audiences to this chilling gathering and shines a light on the power of demagoguery and anti-Semitism in the United States. [2018, US, 7 min, Not Rated].
“Period. End of Sentence.” is set in a rural village outside Delhi, India, where women are leading a quiet revolution. They fight against the deeply rooted stigma of menstruation. “Period. End of Sentence.” tells their story. For generations, these women didn’t have access to pads, which lead to health problems and girls missing school or dropping out entirely. But when a sanitary pad machine is installed in the village, the women learn to manufacture and market their own pads, empowering them within their community. They name their brand “FLY,” because they want women “to soar.” Their flight is, in part, enabled by the work of high school girls half a world away, in California, who raised the initial money for the machine and began a non-profit called “The Pad Project.” [2018, US, in Hindi with English subtitles, 26 min, Not Rated].
Screenings for Best Documentary Short films – Part B are 4:00 pm Friday (Feb 8) and 4:00 pm Wednesday (Feb 13).
Admission is $8 for members and $11 for future members. Customers are encouraged to purchase tickets online. If seats are available, tickets can be purchased at the theater, starting 30 minutes prior to each screening.
The mission of the RBFS is promoting cinematic arts and providing education and cultural enrichment for our community. The Film Society sponsors ongoing screenings, special events, and the Rehoboth Beach Independent Film Festival (October 31 – November 10, 2019). Having met all the requirements for best practices in nonprofit management, the Rehoboth Beach Film Society is accredited by the Standards for Excellence Institute®. The Film Society is funded, in part, by a grant from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts. The Division promotes Delaware arts events on www.DelawareScene.com. For more information on this series, other events, or to become a member, visit the Rehoboth Beach Film Society website at www.rehobothfilm.com, or call 302-645-9095.