Please note: Rating equivalent of R for adult themes, violence and language.

For the 17th consecutive year, Shorts HD and Magnolia Pictures present the Oscar-Nominated Short Films, opening on Feb. 25th. With all three categories offered – Animated, Live Action, and Documentary – this is your annual chance to predict the winners (and have the edge in your Oscar pool)! A perennial hit with audiences around the country and the world, don’t miss this year’s selection of shorts. The Academy Awards take place Sunday, March 27th, and don’t forget about Enzian’s Oscar® Watch Party, which is FREE to attend!

Ala Kachuu – Take and Run
Maria Brendle and Nadine Lüchinger, Kyrgyzstan/Switzerland, 38 min.
Sezim, 19 years old, wants to fulfill her dream of studying in the Kyrgyz capital when she gets kidnapped by a group of young men and taken to the hinterland. There, she’s forced to marry a stranger. If she refuses the marriage, she is threatened with social stigmatization and exclusion. Torn between her desire for freedom and the constraints of Kyrgyz culture, Sezim desperately seeks a way out.

The Dress
Tadeusz Łysiak and Maciej Ślesicki, Poland, 30 min.
Lust, sexuality and physicality. These are the deepest desires virgin Julia suppresses while working at a wayside motel. That is until she crosses paths with a handsome truck driver, who soon becomes the object of her fantasies…

The Long Goodbye
Aneil Karia and Riz Ahmed, UK/Netherlands, 12 min.
Riz and his family are in the middle of preparing a wedding celebration when the events unfolding in the outside world arrive suddenly on their doorstep. The result is a devastating and visceral feat of filmmaking, and a poignant poetic cry from the heart.

On My Mind
Martin Strange-Hansen and Kim Magnusson, Denmark, 18 min.
Henrik wants to sing a song for his wife. It has to be today, it has to be now. It’s a question of life, death and karaoke.

Please Hold
K.D. Dávila and Levin Menekse, USA, 19 min.
In the not-so-distant future, MATEO (20s, Latino) is arrested by a police drone without explanation. Finding himself locked in a fully automated jail with no means of recourse, Mateo realizes he’s fallen through some kind of crack in the system. To get out alive he’ll have to go head-to-head with the labyrinthine, computerized bureaucracy of the privatized American justice system, in search of an actual human being who can set things right.