The Oscars will take place tonight (night our time) at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood. Director and artist Sara Gunnarsdóttir is nominated in the category of Best Animated Short Film for her direction of the film My Year of Dicks.
Sara is also editing the film, which she worked on with author Pamela Ribbon, whose film is based on her book, Notes to Boys: And Other Things I Shouldn’t Share in Public. Released last year, the film is about Pam, who is desperate to lose her virginity and desperately searches for “the only real one”.
Sara was born and raised in Reykjavík and holds a BFA from the Iceland Academy of Arts. In recent years, she has focused on directing cartoons, music videos, and other film and television related projects. Among other things, she produced the Emmy-nominated HBO documentary The Case Against Adnan Syed.
Sara and Ribbon will attend the Oscars with their men. They also had the chance to buy five tickets each and gift them to their producer and her husband as well as other members of the film crew. Sara chose designer Ýr Þrastardóttir, who designs under the Another Creation label, to sew her a black silk dress.
Sara could join the group of Icelanders tonight who received the statue, but overseas media are unsure if My Year of Dicks will receive the award. The New York Times and Vanity Fair predict the film will win an Oscar, while Variety and Deadline predict The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse will take home the award.
The five films competing for the prize are very different and of different lengths.
My Year of Dicks is 24 minutes long and can be watched in full here:
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse is based on the book by Charlie Mackesy. The story is a coming-of-age story for all generations that tells the story of the friendship between a curious boy, a greedy and lively bastard, a fox whose stubbornness has made him suspicious and a horse that is wise and gentle. The film is about innocence and kindness and conveys a philosophy of life that has touched the hearts of over a million readers. The book spent 170 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and was published last year in an Icelandic translation. The film is 34 minutes long and can be viewed on Apple+.
The Canadian The Flying Sailor is based on a real event, an explosion in Halifax in 1917. When a nearby ship explodes, a sailor is sent on an unexpected sea voyage. The film tells of his experiences and a real adventure. The film is eight minutes long and can be viewed here:
The Portuguese ice cream sellers tell the story of a father and son who parachute from their cliff every day and sell ice cream in the village. The boy’s mother is dead, but her spirit still watches over them and, among other things, his coffee mug is still intact on the kitchen table. On a hot day, there is no ice for sale, snow falls on father and son’s house and the breeze blows off the cliff. Without a parachute, the father grabs his son and jumps in hopes of being rescued. The film lasts 14 minutes.
The Canadian An Ostrich Told Me The World Is Wrong And I Think I Believe It (An Ostrich Told Me The World Is Wrong And I Think I Believe It) is about office worker Neil who doesn’t fails to sell toasters from his cubicle, after his boss threatens to fire him. Neil begins to hallucinate and begins to suspect that his world is a fake world. After dozing off at work, he encounters an ostrich who confirms the world is a “fraud” and challenges Neil to take a closer look at his surroundings. While investigating a nearby warehouse, Neil falls off the stop-motion animation set, where he is found by the film’s creator. It turns out that all is not what it seems and Neil and his colleagues are just characters in a stop-motion ad promoting improved office furniture, with an ostrich as the company’s mascot. . The film is 11 minutes long and can be viewed here:
