This year’s five Oscar-nominated live action shorts are strong, disturbing and concise (the longest is 45 minutes). Among the issues they explore are law and order, immigration and interracial relations.
“Two Distant Strangers” examines police brutality and the African-American’s nightmarish anxiety that he will inevitably encounter it. “Feeling Through” explores the unlikely bond between a Black homeless teenager and a deaf and blind white man. “The Letter Room,” centers on the ambivalent experiences of a correctional officer whose duties in the prison’s mail room entail reading letters to and from death row inmates.
The other two films, “White Eye” and “The Present” were made by an Israeli and a Palestinian director, respectively, and they delve into complex moral issues that characterize a region awash in anguish and ambiguity.