Oscar Nominated Shorts Play at Waters Edge Cinema in the Whalers Wharf

All 15 of this year's Oscar nominated short films will show at Waters Edge Cinema,
 237 Commercial Street, 2nd floor of the Whalers Wharf, Provincetown

Provincetown has one of the very few theaters in the country where you'll be able to see all 15 of this year's Oscar contenders in the short film categories of live action, animation and documentary, in that order. Thanks to the programmers at Waters Edge Cinema, on the second floor of Whalers Wharf, we'll have a chance to see each one of the shorts nominated for an Academy Award before the award ceremony itself is broadcast on TV this Sunday night. You'll also find these programs of shorts each playing again next week. You can see a minute-and-a-half teaser for these terrific short films by clicking on this link: http://theoscarshorts.shorts.tv
Friday at 4 PM (and repeating Monday at 4 PM) you can see the program of live action shorts, which leans heavily toward the dramatic end of the scale this year. Films will include Death of a Shadow, a dark love story set in WWI, along with Buzkashi Boys, from Afghanistan, and Somalia's Asad, both dealing with growing up in a land devastated by war. Henry tells of an aging concert pianist and the enigma of a past love. Curfew, about a troubled man asked to babysit his young niece for a few hours, has been honored by 33 film festivals in the US and abroad.
The animation program runs Saturday at 1:30 and at 4 PM, repeating at 4 PM on Tuesday. Familiar objects become edible in the 2 minute animated short Fresh Guacamole. In The Simpsons: The Longest Daycare, you'll likely recognize baby Maggie from the long-running TV series The Simpsons, as she spends a day at the Ayn Rand School for Tots. Paperman is a 7 minute romantic comedy about an office worker who uses paper airplanes to meet a girl. In the more serious Adam and Dog, the Garden of Eden is populated by Adam and a dog. Head Over Heels is a charming 11 minute claymation film about a marriage turned upside down, nominated 8 times in festivals and award programs, and poised to win the Oscar with 4 other wins so far.

The 5 shorts in the documentary category play in 2 programs, with Program A running 2 hours and 3 minutes, playing Sunday at 1 PM and repeating Wednesday at 4 PM, while Program B runs an hour and 23 minutes, playing both Sunday and Thursday at 4 PM. These films could practically be mistaken for a 5 part anthology of films revolving around human relationships and tough topics like aging, terminal illness and homelessness, yet they are surprisingly hopeful, and, of course, each film was made independently of all the others, each one with excellent reviews. Films include Kings Point; Redemption; Open Heart; Innocente; and the inspiring Mondays at Racine, with 4 nominations to date and 2 film festival awards so far. It shows us a couple of Long Island sisters who regularly open the doors of their beauty parlor to the laughter, gossip, tears and fears of women who've been diagnosed with cancer.

Trailers for many of the films can be found, along with all kinds of tidbits to feed your Oscar fever, at the IMDb website. The Internet Movie Database is the world's leading authority on film, television, actors, directors, movie plots, production notes and anything to do with the big or the small screen.

Most folks, and probably many members of The Academy, never get to see Oscar's shorts, but this year, over the coming week, you have a chance to see each one of them. And if you camp out at Waters Edge Cinema, you could actually see them all before the awards are announced on Sunday.

Waters Edge has been operating under the direction of the Provincetown Film Society, the folks who bring us the annual Provincetown International Film Festival, since April of 2010, when they began serious fundraising efforts to buy the theater, create an additional theater on the site, and commit to bringing independent and art house films to PTown year round. We thank them for bringing us this spectacular series of short films.