Ranking The Nominees For Best Live-Action Short

With the 2023 Academy Awards a little under a month away, Shorts TV is hosting theatrical screenings of the nominees in the shorts categories. Locally, the nominees for Best Documentary Short are not screened, however, there are showings available for Best Live-Action Short and Best Animated Short. This year’s competition is a little closer than last year, and again there is a nominee who will probably come out on top even though it is not necessarily the best, but here are the five nominees ranked against each other.

5. An Irish Goodbye

An Irish Goodbye is well shot and has an interesting subject matter, however, the short is a little muddled. It is a story that would be better served as a feature because the problem is the relationship between the two leads needs additional time (considering the short clocks in at a little over 20 minutes) to fully flesh out how they became estranged and how the death of their mother brings them back together. The plot lays it out, but it is an example of a movie telling, not showing, the development of the relationship.

4. Le Pupille

Le Pupille will probably win this category because of the money behind the short. Similar to last year’s The Long Goodbye by Riz Ahmed, this is another large and expensive production considering Disney is putting it out, which will inherently give the short production value and a budget that the others may not have access to. That said, the story is endearing and the girls in the story keep the story paced well, however, the movie has too many characters to make the ending click as well as it could have. Since the viewer has to keep track of over 10 moving pieces over about 40 minutes, the character that has to complete the emotional arc of the movie does not get the chance to fully move through the story in a satisfying way. If one wants to watch this short, it is available on Disney+.

3. Night Ride

Night Ride is interesting, it is a story of solidarity between victims of oppression as a woman named Ebba steals a tram and accidentally becomes the operator as a group of men start attacking and harassing a transgender woman. The only with this short is its runtime where, unlike the two beneath this one, it is too short and additional time to lay out character could have benefitted it, especially considering the short clocks in at under 15 minutes. A little extra time to set up Ebba as a character would have done more to make the turn at the end work a little more clearly.

2. Ivalu

Ivalu makes a strong case to be the best short of the year, just based on cinematography alone. The short is beautifully done and tells the story of a young girl looking to see where her sister ran away after she goes missing in the night. What unfolds is a terrible story about abuse within a family and what happens when cries for help go unnoticed or unanswered. Even in the face of such a sad story, there is a certain level of beauty in the way it unfolds and the visuals around it. Also, if one is making a short film and is debating using a drone for b-roll footage (yes, this complaint again) watch Ivalu to determine if the film actually needs it. Ivalu is an excellent case study as to when a drone should be used to create scale and a sense of isolation so, unless a short film has a thematic or emotional reason to use such a shot, don’t do it because it does not have the intended effect. All it does otherwise is make it obvious to the viewer that there was money left in the budget to rent a drone and the money went there.

1. The Red Suitcase

Every once in a while, a movie will come along and manage to distill an emotion and portray it for an audience in a way that has never been done that well before. Late last year, Aftersun managed this with nostalgia and now The Red Suitcase does this with anxiety. The Red Suitcase is the story of an Iranian girl whose father has given her away to be married and sent her to Luxembourg to be with her new husband, but the girl decides to run away and try to escape her fate in this airport. Over the course of the short, she has to try and hide and escape this man who evidently paid a lot of money for her and is driven to find her, so she takes off her headscarf and does her best to avoid him. Very few movies can elicit the feeling of sheer terror and anxiety of what this girl is dealing with as she attempts her escape and this short is a masterclass in building mood with very little dialogue in a real-world situation.