OSCAR SHORT FILMS - 6
More Academy Award winning short films in chronological order.
Election Night by Anders Thomas Jensen (1998) (Denmark) (11m)
Election Night (Valgaften in Danish) is a short comedy drama by Danish filmmaker Andres Thomas Jenson, best known now as a writer (he scripted The Duchess). It follows the last minute attempts of the liberal Peter to vote in Denmark's general election. He has to put up with a series of xenophobic taxi drivers but remains lost in the politically correct maze even after he reaches his destination.
Trevor by Peggy Rajski (1994) (US) (16m)
Trevor, written by James Lecesne and directed by Peggy Rajski, won an Oscar as well an Honorable Mention at Sundance (though she had previously been on the jury). The film follows the growing pains of teenage Trevor who is struggling to fit in at school and whose homophobic parents seem incapable of understanding his troubled soul. The opening is reminiscent to the 1971 feature film Harold and Maude. It shared the Oscar with the film below!
Franz Kafka's It's A Wonderful Life by P Capaldi ('95) (UK) (22m)
A comical look at how Franz Kafka decided upon what Gregor Samsa should metamorphose into in his most famous work, the novella The Metamorphosis. Richard E Grant stars as Kafka with a guest appearnce from Ken Stott. It doesn't really reference It's A Wonderful Life until the end but this idea, of how famous creators came up with their ideas, has been repeated several times in Oscar nominated shorts. Peter Capaldi is of course best known as an actor.
