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Shrine Circus being planned

<p>It&#8217;s time to start your Oscar homework. The 2016 Academy Award-nominated short films are out, and as usual, there are separate programs of animated and live-action movies. Also as usual, we are reviewing one of the programs, not both &#8212; this time, the animated category. Note that, except for the film &#8220;Prologue,&#8221; which has violence and some nudity, these shorts are suitable for all ages.</p><p>The 800-pound gorilla here is &#8220;Sanjay&#8217;s Super Team,&#8221; a Pixar short that played with the studio&#8217;s most recent feature release, &#8220;The Good Dinosaur.&#8221; It shows all the professionalism and polish of Pixar&#8217;s longer movies, but in service of a small, personal story. Sanjay, a young member of a Hindu family, loves to watch superhero cartoons. His father is a devout man who would like the boy to pray. Through cartoon magic, the youngster winds up in a magical place where statues of Hindu deities, from the father&#8217;s small shrine, have come to life. The director is Sanjay Patel, who grew up loving &#8220;Looney Tunes.&#8221;</p><p>The highly impressive &#8220;World of Tomorrow&#8221; is made in a minimalist style &#8212; the characters are stick figures &#8212; but it&#8217;s full of ideas and emotions. Four-year-old Emily, a delightful character, is contacted by an adult clone of herself from 200-odd years in the future. The clone shows Emily life in the &#8220;outernet,&#8221; in which many traditions of human society seem to have fallen away. Let&#8217;s just say that filmmaker Don Hertzfeldt does not buy into the more extravagant claims for the benefits of technology. The future is a melancholy place, and the clone, despite her mechanical delivery, is clearly capable of sadness.</p><p>From Chile&#8217;s Punkrobot Animation Studio comes the handsome and affecting &#8220;Bear Story.&#8221; Directed by Gabriel Osorio, it&#8217;s about a lonely urban bear who designs a mechanical puppet show depicting the sad story of his own family &#8212; how he was taken from his wife and son and sent to a circus. For Chileans, the movie unmistakably refers to the human rights violations of the Pinochet regime, beginning in 1973, when many opponents of the government were tortured or killed. Osorio has said that the film was inspired by the story of his grandfather, who was incarcerated for several years under Pinochet.</p><p>Of the five animated shorts screened for critics, the remaining two were less satisfying. &#8220;Prologue,&#8221; by the renowned animator Richard Williams (&#8220;Who Framed Roger Rabbit&#8221;), is remarkable for being a rare example of hand-drawn animation (6,000 drawings to make a six-minute film). Without dialogue and with a minimum of color, it shows the intense brutality of warfare in ancient Greece. Herculean labor, but in the service of a very heavy-handed message. The Russian effort &#8220;We Can&#8217;t Live Without Cosmos&#8221; has some funny and touching sequences in recounting the lifelong friendship of two cosmonauts (watch for the reference to &#8220;2001: A Space Odyssey&#8221;), but finally is less affecting than it aims to be.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">In &#8220;Bear Story&#8221; every day, a sad old bear takes a mechanical diorama he created out to a street corner. For a coin, passers-by can look into the peephole of his invention, which tells the story of a circus bear who longs to escape and return to the family from which he was taken. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/web1_bearstory.jpg</photo0><caption0>In &#8220;Bear Story&#8221; every day, a sad old bear takes a mechanical diorama he created out to a street corner. For a coin, passers-by can look into the peephole of his invention, which tells the story of a circus bear who longs to escape and return to the family from which he was taken. </caption0><photoCredit0>AP photos </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/web1_prologue.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">This is the third Academy Award nomination for Richard Williams, who directed &#8220;Prologue.&#8221; He was previously nominated for visual effects in &#8220;Who Framed Roger Rabbit&#8221; short subject for &#8220;A Christmas Carol&#8221; in 1972. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/web1_prologue.jpg</photo1><caption1>This is the third Academy Award nomination for Richard Williams, who directed &#8220;Prologue.&#8221; He was previously nominated for visual effects in &#8220;Who Framed Roger Rabbit&#8221; short subject for &#8220;A Christmas Carol&#8221; in 1972. </caption1><photoCredit1>AP photos </photoCredit1></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/web1_sanjay.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">This Academy Award nomination, for Sanjay Patel and Nicole Grindle, are their first. &#8220;Sanjay&#8217;s Super Team&#8221; was nominated for best animated short film. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo2>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/web1_sanjay.jpg</photo2><caption2>This Academy Award nomination, for Sanjay Patel and Nicole Grindle, are their first. &#8220;Sanjay&#8217;s Super Team&#8221; was nominated for best animated short film. </caption2><photoCredit2>AP photos </photoCredit2></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/web1_tomorrow.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">In the short, &#8220;World of Tomorrow,&#8221; a little girl named Emily is taken on a fantastical tour of her distant future by a surprising visitor who reveals unnerving secrets about humanity&#8217;s fate. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo3>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/web1_tomorrow.jpg</photo3><caption3>In the short, &#8220;World of Tomorrow,&#8221; a little girl named Emily is taken on a fantastical tour of her distant future by a surprising visitor who reveals unnerving secrets about humanity&#8217;s fate. </caption3><photoCredit3>AP photos </photoCredit3></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/web1_cosmos.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">In &#8220;Cosmos,&#8221; two best friends dream of becoming cosmonauts, and together they endure the rigors of training and public scrutiny, and make the sacrifices necessary to achieve their shared goal. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo4>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/web1_cosmos.jpg</photo4><caption4>In &#8220;Cosmos,&#8221; two best friends dream of becoming cosmonauts, and together they endure the rigors of training and public scrutiny, and make the sacrifices necessary to achieve their shared goal. </caption4><photoCredit4>AP photos </photoCredit4></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>Lesser known nominees are worth the watch</subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Walter Addiego</p><p>San Francisco Chronicle</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta><p><strong>Nominees for animated short film:</strong></p><p>&#8220;Bear Story&#8221; &#8212;Gabriel Osorio and Pato Escala</p><p>&#8220;Prologue&#8221; &#8212;Richard Williams and Imogen Sutton</p><p>&#8220;Sanjay&#8217;s Super Team&#8221; &#8212;Sanjay Patel and Nicole Grindle</p><p>&#8220;We can&#8217;t Live Without Cosmos&#8221; &#8212; Konstantin Bronzit</p><p>&#8220;World of Tomorrow&#8221; &#8212; Don Hertzfeldt</p></factboxMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach the arts and entertainment department at 570-991-6111 or at ae@www.timesleader.com.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Lesser known Academy Award nominees for Short Films are worth the watch