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Zurich Film Festival (Zff) Co-Program Director and Head of Industry Reta Guetg has been appointed Vice Director of the Swiss event.

Guetg is well-known in industry circles on both sides of the Atlantic for her role organizing the annual Zurich Summit bringing together top film professionals from North America and Europe on the opening weekend of the lakeside festival.

As vice director, she will work with Festival Director Christian Jungen on matters of programming, guests and public relations.

With an academic background in film studies and journalism and experience as co-founder of the transnational short film festival Shnit, Guetg has played a key role in shaping the Zff over the past ten years.

She will remain attached to the Zurich Summit to support Jean de Meuron who has been appointed project manager for the event, having worked on it successfully for the first time last year.

Guetg’s promotion is...

Updated: Jan. 17, 2025

Predicting the nominees for the three short film categories at the Oscars is no easy task. Fortunately for you, we are here to help. Below are the 15 shortlisted titles for Best Live Action Short at the Academy Awards along with descriptions and embedded videos where available.

Among the subjects on this year’s list: an adolescent boy seeking to prove that he belongs in his family, the last moments that a woman spends in prison, a woman seeking to figure out whether she’s an android, and a Jewish ice cream shop owner in 1940s Amsterdam.

Here is your 2025 Oscars Best Live Action Short cheat sheet, ranked according to Gold Derby’s current combined odds:

“The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent” – 39/10 odds

In war-torn Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1993, a passenger train is stopped by paramilitary forces to conduct an ethnic cleansing operation and only one of the...

Variety hosted a panel for six short films, moderated by Senior Artisans Editor Jazz Tangcay, as part of the Variety Streaming Room series. Among the films featured on the panel were “Au Revoir Mon Monde” from co-directors Florian Maurice and Astrid Novais, “Bottle George” from director Daisuke Tsutsumi, “Edge of Space” from director Jean de Meuron, “I’m Not a Robot” from director Victoria Warmerdam and producer Trent, “The Masterpiece” from director Alex Lora and “The Last Ranger” from director Cindy Lee and writer David S. Lee.

Maurice shared how the inspiration for “Au Revoir Mon Monde” came from his own lived experiences. Listening to a song about the difficulties of relationships, the co-director reflected on the loss of his father at age six and was drawn to crafting a narrative centered around human grief.

“I wanted to make a story about grieving,” Maurice said. “Taking the theme of the end...

Doc Short Contenders Give Voters Plenty to Ponder

The 15 films that made the shortlist in the Oscars’ documentary short category are all powerful and thought-provoking, making the competition for an Academy Award nod incredibly stiff this year.

Leading the charge are “Incident,” “The Only Girl in the Orchestra,” “The Quilters,” “Death by Numbers” and “Keepers.”

The first 89 seconds of Bill Morrison’s police brutality doc “Incident” is silent. Security footage captures a street in Chicago on a July afternoon in 2018. Minutes later, a man is dead. Through a series of recordings of CCTV and police bodycam footage captured from different vantage points, Morrison offers a raw look at the Chicago police shooting of a Black man. The 29-minute New Yorker film won the best short documentary award at the 2023 IDA Documentary Awards and garnered a spot on the influential Doc NYC shortlist earlier this year.

Netflix’s “The Only Girl...

Fifteen outstanding short films have been nominated for the Academy Awards’ Live Action Short Film category. These films provide a captivating look at human experiences that question society’s standards and address global challenges. This year’s selection covers various topics, from personal experiences to larger social justice issues.

Among the prominent entries is “Anuja,” which stars Mindy Kaling and Guneet Monga Kapoor. This film follows the narrative of a young Indian girl caught between obtaining an education and working in a factory. It has already received honors at the HollyShorts Film Festival and the New York International Short Film Festival.

Another notable film is “Dovecote,” directed by Marco Perego and starring Zoe Saldaña. This film addresses the idea of freedom through a woman’s final day in prison. Colin Farrell has supported the film “Room Taken,” which tells the story of a Nigerian immigrant who covertly lives in the...

The 2025 Oscars shortlist was revealed Tuesday, and the Live Action Short Films category aims to pull on Academy voters’ heartstrings and appeal to their humanity.

With each showcasing and tackling a form of injustice, societal inequality and perseverance, highlights that found a place for themselves across the 15 dedicated slots include notable shorts such as Adam J. Graves’ Anuja, which follows the story of a young Indian girl who has to decide between education or employment at a factory. The short film grabbed wins for Best Live Action Short at the HollyShorts Film Festival, the Grand Prize at the New York International Short Film Festival alongside attaining support from filmmakers Mindy Kaling and Guneet Monga Kapoor, who signed on as EPs. Dovecote, directed by Marco Perego, stars Zoe Saldaña as a woman who contemplates the real meaning of freedom on her last day in prison.

In the Colin Farrell endorsed and EP’d project Room Taken,...

HollyShorts Film Festival is returning for its 20th edition with a star-studded lineup.

400 films have been selected from over 6,000 entries with films from Zoe Saldana, Bella Thorne and Jamie Lee Curtis making the final cut.

HollyShorts includes four Oscar-qualifying categories, including documentary short film, best short film grand prize, best short animation and best short live-action.

The live-action short film entries include “How Can I Help You” directed by Eliza Scanlen and starring Thomasin McKenzie, Marco Perego’s “Dovecote” with Zoe Saldana, “Dammi” starring Riz Ahmed and Isabelle Adjani, Ken Cheng’s “Summons” starring Jimmy O. Yang and Alexandra Shipp, “Midnight” from legendary Japanese director Takashi Miike, Louisa Connolly-Burnham’s “Sister Wives” featuring Mia McKenna-Bruce, “Hearts of Stone” with Noomi Rapace and Jessica Barden, “French” directed by Dylan Joseph, produced by Shira Nagan and exec produced by Kobi Mizrahi, “Vlog” starring and directed by Yvonne Strahovski, “Edge of Space” directed by Jean de Meuron,...

Remember how Netflix dropped The Cloverfield Paradox out of nowhere after the Super Bowl this year? And how it was kind of a confusing mess that barely connected to 2008's Cloverfield? At the time, the takeaway seemed to be that another decent movie in the Cloverfield universe was just not meant to happen. Yes, 10 Cloverfield Lane was a solid entry, but neither film really captured the raw excitement of the first entry into the "franchise." And just when we were about to give up hope, a new addition has suddenly emerged.

Megan is a short film that is not technically part of the Cloverfield canon, at least not yet. That's because it's more of a fan's dedication to the lore of the series than it is an addition with a J.J. Abrams stamp of approval. Megan is directed by Greg Strasz, with writing and story credits by Giuseppe Mercadante,...

“La Femme et le Tgv” director Timo Von Gunten is too young to feel starstruck by his film’s star, legendary model, actress, and singer Jane Birkin. “For me, it was just Jane: A wonderful, beautiful actress, and I handled her very similarly to anyone else,” said the director, who still lives with his parents when he is home in Switzerland.

Von Gunten’s whimsical film is nominated for an Oscar in the Live Action Short category, and features an inspired performance by Birkin as Elise, a woman who waves to the train that passes by her picturesque window every morning. That part of the story is based on something Von Gunten read in the papers; the rest is pure imagination. In the film, Elise finds a note tied to a box of cheese from the train conductor, and the two begin a correspondence that reinvigorates her routine existence.

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Nick Meyer and Jonathan Kier at the sales team will kick off talks with buyers on the project from Bold Films, for whom Sierra/Affinity handles exclusive sales.

Brady Corbet wrote and directed Vox Lux, about the life and times of a pop superstar who rose to fame after a life-changing event. Production is set to begin this month.

Bold Films is fully financing and Michel Litvak and Gary Michael Walters produce with Christine Vachon and David Hinojosa of Killer Films, and Brian Young of Three Six Zero Entertainment. Bold’s Svetlana Metkina and Sia are executive producers.

Film Independent and animation maestros Laika have announced a second year of the Laika Animation Fellowship in Project Involve. The Fellowship provides a $10,000 grant to an animator in the diversity mentorship programme.Silvatar Media has signed Timo von Gunten to direct action heist feature Eiffel. Morgan Hage wrote the screenplay from a story by von Gunten and an earlier...