Cinema Art Theater presents Oscar nominated short films

The Rehoboth Beach Film Society will be offering several screenings of the Oscar nominees for Best Live Action Short Films, Best Animated Short Films and Best Documentary Short Films, beginning Friday, April 9, at the Cinema Art Theater and as streaming films. Check rehobothfilm.com to purchase tickets online and access streaming links.

The nominees for Best Live Action Short films are:

• “Feeling Through” is the first film to feature a deaf/blind actor in a lead role. It is a coming-of-age story that follows Tereek, a teen wandering the streets of New York, desperate for a place to crash when he encounters Artie, a deaf/blind man in need of assistance getting to a bus stop. Out of an awkward meeting between strangers emerges an intimate bond, and a journey that forever changes Tereek. 

• In “Two Distant Strangers” cartoonist Carter James’ repeated attempts to get home to his dog are thwarted by a recurring deadly encounter that forces him to re-live the same awful day over and over again.

• In “The Letter Room” an empathetic corrections officer gets transferred to the prison’s letter room where he soon finds escape in the deeply personal letters written to an inmate on death row.

• In “The Present” Yusef and his young daughter set out in the West Bank to buy his wife a gift for their anniversary. Between soldiers, segregated roads and checkpoints, how easy would it be to go shopping?

• In “White Eye” a man finds his stolen bicycle, which now belongs to a stranger. While attempting to retrieve it, his views on racial discrimination are tested.

Screenings for Best Live Action Short films are 2 p.m., Saturday, April 10; and 2 p.m., Thursday, April 15.

The nominees for Best Documentary Short films are:

• “Colette,” Ninety-year-old Colette Marin-Catherine is one of the last surviving members of the French Resistance. As a young girl, she belonged to a family of Resistance fighters that included her 17-year-old brother Jean-Pierre. The last time Colette saw Jean-Pierre was in 1943, when he was arrested by the Gestapo and disappeared into the Nazi concentration camp system, never to be seen by his family again.

• “A Concerto is a Conversation” tells the story of virtuoso jazz pianist and film composer Kris Bowers as he tracks his family’s lineage through his 91-year-old grandfather from Jim Crow Florida to the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

• “Do Not Split” is told from within the heart of the Hong Kong protests. It begins in 2019 as a proposed bill allowing the Chinese government to extradite criminal suspects to mainland China escalated protests throughout Hong Kong. Unfolding across a year, the film captures the determination and sacrifices of the protesters, the government’s backlash, and the passage of the new Beijing-backed national security law.

• “Hunger Ward” is filmed inside two of the most active therapeutic feeding centers in conflict-ridden Yemen and documents two women fighting to thwart the spread of starvation against the backdrop of a forgotten war. The film provides unflinching portraits of Dr. Aida Alsadeeq and Nurse Mekkia Mahdi as they work to save the lives of hunger-stricken children within a population on the brink of famine. With unprecedented access within a sensitive conflict-zone, “Hunger Ward” reveals the bravery of deeply committed doctors working in the middle of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. 

• “A Love Song to Latasha” is the story of the injustice surrounding the shooting death of 15-year-old Latasha Harlins at a South Central Los Angeles store that became a flashpoint for the city’s 1992 civil uprising. As the Black community expressed its profound pain in the streets, Latasha’s friends and family privately mourned the loss of a vibrant child whose full story was never in the headlines. Oral history and memories from Latasha’s best friend and cousin converge in a dreamlike portrait that shows the impact one brief but brilliant life can have.

Screenings for Best Documentary Short films are 5 p.m., Friday, April 9; 3:45 p.m., Sunday, April 11; and 5 p.m., Thursday, April 15.

The nominees for Best Animated Short films are:

• In Disney and Pixar’s new short film “Burrow,” a young rabbit embarks on a journey to dig the burrow of her dreams, despite not having a clue about what she is doing. Rather than reveal her imperfections to her neighbors, she digs herself deeper and deeper into trouble. After hitting (bed) rock bottom, she learns there is no shame in asking for help.

• “Genius Loci” is about one night in the life of Reine, a young loner, who sees among the urban chaos a moving oneness that seems alive, like some sort of guide. 

• “If Anything Happens I Love You” is the story of grieving parents who struggle with the loss of their daughter after a school shooting. 

• “Opera” is an animation project that can be defined as a contemporary animated edition of the Renaissance fresco mural paintings. 

• In “Yes People” an eclectic group of people face the everyday battle, such as work, school, and dishwashing. As the day progresses, their relationships are tested and ultimately their capacity to cope.

Also screening with the Animated Shorts are additional films “Kapaemahu,” “The Snail & The Whale,” and “To Gerard.”

Screening for Best Animated Short films is 2 p.m., Wednesday, April 14.

Admission is $8 for members and $11 for future members. Customers are encouraged to purchase tickets online. If seats are available, tickets can be purchased at the theater, starting 30 minutes prior to each screening.