Live-Action Shorts from ‘A Collection of 2006 Academy Award Nominated Short Films’

Released by Magnolia Pictures, the DVD aptly titled "A Collection of 2006 Academy Award Nominated Short Films" features both the live-action and animated shorts that won and received nominations at the 2006 Oscars. The disc also supplies a handful of bonus feature shorts outside its Oscar-nominated offerings.

For its main collection of live-action shorts, this release presents the 2006 winner for the Academy Award for Best Short Film (live-action category) "West Bank Story" and the rest of the nominated films, including "The Saviour," "Helmer and Son," "One Too Many" ("Eramos Pocos"), and "Binta and the Great Idea" ("Binta y la Gram Idea").

"West Bank Story"

The U.S.-produced "West Bank Story," a musical parody of "West Side Story," is set in the West Bank, a region on the border of Israel and Palestine. It tells the story of two rival families as their restaurants compete within the West Bank border. A romance sparks between the cashier from the Palestinian restaurant and the Israeli border soldier from the Israeli restaurant.

What makes this film shine is how the story is told with such a modern, entertaining, and satiric twist that effectively shows the actual political tensions in the West Bank. Using the stereotypes of the musical and comedy genres, the film interestingly progresses in showing the heartfelt animosity of the two dueling families.

"The Saviour"

Australia's "The Saviour" features a young Christian missionary who turns his weekly door-to-door evangelist campaign into an affair with a married woman. In the middle of the sexual relationship, he continues to recruit the woman, who expresses no interest in converting her religion. Soon she also wants to break off their illicit relationship; the reason gets explained when the missionary finally meets her husband.

This film explores the inner conflicts a person has with faith and how one's emotions and religious beliefs can become a complicated matter to contend with.

"Helmer and Son"

Denmark's "Helmer and Son" tells a simple and straightforward story then adds a comic twist. The film is about an elderly man who locks himself in a closet at a nursing home and the discovery his son and daughter make after persuading him to come out. It seems like he has locked himself in protest to living in a retirement home, but this well-written and effectively directed and acted film reveals a hilariously different resolution.

"One Too Many"

"One Too Many" is a Spanish comedy about a lazy husband and his son, already a young man himself, as they deal with the fact that their wife and mother already left them. She is clearly fed-up with their desperate lifestyle of living like pigs doing nothing but eating and watching TV day in and day out. This prompts the helpless husband to bring in his mother-in-law from the retirement home. This well-crafted short utilizes stark imagery, light-hearted comedy, and casual ambiguity to lead the story toward an ironically comic end.

"Binta and the Great Idea"

"Binta and the Great Idea" features the everyday life of a young girl in a small African village. She helps her father with the grand idea involving a letter aimed to make the world a better place. At the same time, in school, the children perform a play in an attempt to convince another girl's father to allow her to go to school.

With its unconventional structure, this Spanish-Senegalese film offers a moving story about the importance of education and how humanity can celebrate the core of goodness in the world.

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