Real Art Ways, at 56 Arbor St. in Hartford, begins its annual celebration of Oscar-nominated short films this week. All of the short films nominated this year for Academy Awards will be shown, in different schedules, over three weeks. The programs are divided into categories: animated, live-action and documentary.
The animated films will be shown first, running Friday, Jan. 29, through Thursday, Feb. 4, at 7:20 p.m. daily, with a 3:25 p.m. matinee Saturday and a noon matinee Sunday. The nominated films are “Bear Story,” the story of a bear and his mechanical toy, which was shown last year in the Manhattan Short Film Festival; “Prologue,” a story of warriors of ancient times; “Sanjay’s Super Team,” a tale of an Indian-American teen bored with his religion; “We Can’t Live Without Cosmos,” about two cosmonauts who are lifelong best friends; and “World of Tomorrow,” about a girl who gets to see her future.
A few additional non-nominated animated films will be shown, including “If I Was God,” “The Short Story of a Fox and a Mouse,” “The Loneliest Spotlight” and “Catch It.” The total running time of the animated program is about 86 minutes.
The live-action films will be shown from Feb. 5 to 11. The schedule for the documentaries is yet to be determined.
The live-action shorts are “Ave Maria,” about West Bank nuns who have taken a vow of silence trying to help an argumentative Jewish family; “Day One,” about an Afghan-American woman working as a military interpreter, in Dari with subtitles and English; “Everything Will Be Okay,” about a divorced father and his 8-year-old daughter; “Shok,” a story of ethnic cleansing set in Kosovo in 1998, also seen in last year’s Manhattan Short Film Festival; and “Stutterer,” about a man who is afraid to meet his online love because he stutters. The total running time of the live-action program is 107 minutes.
The documentary films are “The Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness,” a chronicle of Pakistani honor killings; “Body Team 12,” a story of Liberian teams that retrieve the bodies of Ebola victims; “Chau, Beyond the Lines,” an account of a Vietnamese teen whose birth defects are due to Agent Orange; “Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah,” a profile of the Holocaust filmmaker; and “Last Day of Freedom,” which follows a veteran with PTSD and little access to health care who commits a crime.
Tickets are $11, $7 seniors and students; $5 members, $4.50 senior and student members. realartways.org.
