Don’t put away your tux’s and gowns just yet! With all the awards shows happening in Hollywood, it made for quite a busy weekend. In addition to the Oscars® and the Independent Spirit Awards, the Shorts Awards started off the award weekend with a bang and we have a list of the winners below.
Shorts International presented its first ever Shorts Awards on Friday at the Soho House in celebration of outstanding accomplishments in the world of short film over the past year, including the The Oscar® Nominated Short Films 2011, which are being distributed by Shorts International and Magnolia Pictures. Comedian Tim Washer hosted the inaugural ceremony.
From the press release
The Oscar® Nominees Award was handed out to each of this year’s fifteen short movie nominees in recognition of their achievements. In the Shorts Animated category, awards were bestowed on Teddy Newton (DAY & NIGHT/USA); Jakob Schuh and Max Lange (THE GRUFFALO/Germany); Geefwee Boedoe (LET’S POLLUTE/USA); Shaun Tan and Sophie Byrne (THE LOST THING/Australia) and Bastien Dubois (MADAGASCAR, CARNET DE VOYAGE/France).
In the Shorts Live Action category, awards were given to Tanel Toom (THE CONFESSION/UK); Michael Creagh (THE CRUSH/Ireland); (GOD OF LOVE/USA); Ivan Goldschmidt (NA WEWE/Belgium) and Ian Barnes and Samantha Waite (WISH 143/UK).
In the Shorts Documentary category, awards were presented to Jed Rothstein (KILLING IN THE NAME/USA); Sara Nesson and Mitchell Block (POSTER GIRL/USA); Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon (STRANGERS NO MORE/USA); Jennifer Redfearn and Tim Metzger (SUN COME UP/USA/PAPUA NEW GUINEA) and Ruby Yang and Thomas Lennon (THE WARRIORS OF QIUGANG/USA).
In addition to this year’s Oscar® nominees, Shorts International handed out several Visionary Awards, recognizing those individuals that embrace the medium’s reputation for bucking the trend and contributing their considerable talents to innovative short movies that embody the category’s best qualities. This year’s recipients were “Visionary Actress” Melissa Leo; “Visionary Director” Kenneth Branagh and “Visionary Leader” June Foray.
The highest honor of the evening – the Lifetime Achievement in Short Film was awarded to filmmaker John Lasseter in recognition of his extraordinary achievements as a short moviemaker and peerless champion of the category. The award was presented by Jon Bloom, chairman of Short Film and Feature Animations Branch of the Academy of Motion Pictures.
Carter Pilcher, Chief Executive of Shorts International said, “This is an exciting evening for the world of entertainment. For the first time we have recognized the accomplishments in the world of short movies. We are deeply honored and amazed at the depth of talent and insight by the short movies that were honored tonight.”
John Lasseter told the Associated Press of his award,
“It feels fantastic because I love short films. I love the art form and what it did for me as a filmmaker. I learned so much from making short films. They’re these little gems, these fantastic little ideas that are not meant to be a feature film. They’re perfect unto themselves. A great short film leaves you smiling and thinking about it. I do believe we will one day see an animated film win the best picture Oscar, and I hope it’s on Sunday,” Lasseter said. “I think that over time, more and more of Hollywood and the Academy has gotten to know animation. It’s exactly the same as live action filmmaking. We tell great stories. We use great actors. We just use a different camera.”
