DRAWN TO THE RED CARPET
Canadian filmmakers dominate animated short category at Oscars
TORONTO Canadians dominated the best animated short category in this week’s Oscar nominations, with three of the five films done by homegrown talent who all know of each other and joke that they’ll venture to the Los Angeles celebrations in Canuck attire.
“Two of them are from Toronto originally, as I am, so we can all go down wearing our Toronto Maple Leafs jerseys,” said Vancouver-based David Fine, who is nominated in the category along with Alison Snowden for Animal Behaviour.
“Or Toronto Raptors jerseys — I’m more of a basketball fan,” added director Trevor Jimenez, who got a nomination in the category for Weekends — on the same day he and his wife were celebrating their wedding anniversary.
Domee Shi is also nominated for best animated short, along with Becky Neiman-Cobb, for the Pixar production Bao. Shi is the first female director to helm a Pixar short film. The eight-minute Bao is the sweet story of an older Chinese woman in Toronto who gets another chance at motherhood when one of her steamed dumplings comes to life.
The category is rounded out by the Irish title Late Afternoon by Louise Bagnall and Nuria González Blanco, and the Chinese-American production One Small Step by Andrew Chesworth and Bobby Pontillas.
Shi, who lives in California, said she woke up after the Oscar nominations because she’s “paranoid about this type of stuff” and was pleasantly surprised to see more than 20 text messages congratulating her.
Both she and Jimenez studied animation at Ontario’s Sheridan College and now work at the Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif.
“We’re always really supportive of each other because both of us are from Toronto,” said Shi, who was born in Chongqing, China, and moved to Toronto when she was two. “I always looked up to him, because he was four years ahead of me and his student film Key Lime Pie was so impressive.
“I remember being a starry-eyed first year like, ‘Oh my gosh, Trevor’s film is so awesome. What if I get to work with him one day?’ So it’s really cool that we’re both nominated today for the same category.”
Jimenez watched the nominations on a live stream in Berkeley, Calif., sitting beside his wife while Skyping his mother.
“I was speechless after,” he said. “I just looked at my mom on Skype who was crying and then looked at my wife. Just a lot of love. One of the most incredible feelings I’ve had.”
Weekends is a touching, handdrawn look at a young boy shuffling between the homes of his recently divorced parents in the 1980s. Like Bao, it features many Toronto landmarks, including the CN Tower.
Jimenez, who wrote and directed the 15-minute film, said the story is inspired by his own experiences with his parents split — spending weekdays with his mom in Hamilton, Ont., and weekends with his dad in Toronto.
He devoted more than 10 years to the 2D project, working with production designer Chris Sasaki, and shared every version with his mother to make sure she was comfortable with it.
“There’s a lot of emotional truth in there, and I think that’s why it’s also emotional for me that my mom was there watching the announcement with me,” said Jimenez, who has been a story artist for over a decade and has also worked at Disney Feature Animation.
“We’ve just been through a lot together ... us being around each other all the time and the ups and downs, just her raising me. I was the only kid, so it was just us.”
Jimenez said he’s had email correspondence with Fine and Snowden, a husband-and-wife filmmaking team who won an Oscar in 1995 for best animated short for Bob’s Birthday.
“I actually emailed David and told him I that watched Bob’s Birthday — I rented it from the library when I was, like, nine,” Jimenez said.
“It was the first time I saw animated nudity. I love that short. I love Animal Behaviour, too.”
Animal Behaviour was produced at the National Film Board of Canada and gives a comedic look at a group-therapy session that includes a leech with separation anxiety and a pig with an eating disorder.
The 14-minute film was made with digital, hand-drawn 2D animation and was inspired by the idea that “animals have similar issues to people but they don’t get judged by it,” said Snowden.
It’s the fourth animated-short Oscar nomination for Fine and Snowden, who both write, direct and animate.
Their first nomination was at the 1986 Oscars for Second Class Mail and their second was at the ’88 awards for George and Rosemary. Animal Behaviour is the couple’s first animated short since Bob’s Birthday.
Other Canadians up for hardware at the Feb. 24 Oscars include sound mixer Paul Massey for Bohemian Rhapsody and set decorator Gordon Sim for Mary Poppins Returns. The live action short film category also has two finalists from Montreal — Jeremy Comte for Fauve and Marianne Farley for Marguerite.