Today marks the 83rd Academy Awards Show. Last year some 42 million viewers tuned in to watch the hoopla. While this is far behind the 111 million mark achieved here in the U.S. by those watching the Super Bowl, it’s  still a staggering number. (The global numbers for the television audience to both events shoot to 150 million and 1 billion, respectively.) I’m able to tangentially tap into the popularity of the Academy awards show thanks to the relatively neglected realm belonging to Oscar‘s shorts. This year, the calendar film series I program devoted these last five days to screening them all. The previous three years we’ve shown both the Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts and Live-Action Shorts, but this is the very first year we also had access to the Documentary Shorts.

The Documentary Shorts posed an interesting and unexpected problem for me. My calendar always goes to press before the Oscar nominations are announced, so I’ve traditionally given the Animation and Live-Action Shorts generic start times of 7pm and 9:30pm – a two-and-a-half hour spread that usually gives me plenty of time between shows – especially for the Animation program, which tends to clock in at just over an hour in time. So I did the same thing for the Documentary Shorts, and I did this without realizing that all five of the doc “shorts” hit the maximum length allowed for Oscar consideration. That’s a three-and-a-half-hour long program! Oops. Long story not-so-short: the people who showed up for the 9:30 show had to wait and were there until almost 2am on a weekday night.

Enough preamble. One of the reasons the shorts program is one of the more popular shows we put on is because a lot of people have office-pools and friendly wagers on what titles will actually walk away with an Oscar. These people want to have a little insight on all the contenders so, to that end, here’s the full lineup, along with some cherry-picked info provided by the company responsible for distributing the program, Shorts International:

DOCUMENTARY SHORTS

Killing in the Name (Director: Jed Rothstein, USA, 39 mins.) Ashraf was celebrating the happiest day of his life when an Al-Qaeda suicide bomber walked into his wedding and killed his father and 26 other family members in front of his eyes. Now, he’s rising from tragedy to break the silence in the Muslim community on the taboo subject of terrorism. From a recruiter for Al-Qada, to an Islamic militant behind one of the world’s worst terrorist attacks, to a madrassa filled with young boys ready to fulfill the duty of jihad, Ashraf takes us on a harrowing journey around the world to see if one man can speak truth to terror, and begin to turn the global tide.

Rothstein has been making documentaries since 1995, and is currently working on one called Heavy Metal Islam that “follows young Egyptians as they struggle for freedom and the chance to play once forbidden music on the world stage.” With recent developments in Egypt, I’m guessing that film just got a whole lot louder.

Poster Girl (Director: Sara Nesson, USA, 38 mins.) Apple pie cheerleader turned tough-as-nails machine gunner in the Iraq war, Sgt. Robynn Murray comes home to face a new kind of battle she never anticipated.

Huffington Post adds: “Murray was featured on the cover of the Army’s official magazine, transformed into a poster girl for the ideal female soldier. After a tour manning a machine gun and examining dead civilians, Murray returned home a physical and emotional wreck.” Director Nesson shares an office with Ross Kauffman, who won an Academy Award for Born into Brothels – so I’m sure she’s gotten some very good advice on her path to an Oscar nomination.

Strangers No More (Directors: Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon, USA, 40 mins.) In the heart of Tel Aviv, there is an exceptional school where children from 48 different countries and diverse backgrounds come together to learn. Many of the students arrive at Bialik-Rogozin in the wake of poverty, political adversity and even genocide. Here, no child is a stranger.

Lots of good intentions here, as the filmmakers follow three children for 15 months. The directors have made over 20 docs which have been broadcast on PBS, HBO, and MTV – with subjects ranging from “Toxic Tales of Teens and Alcohol” to Cairo belly dancers. Personally, I think they missed an opportunity by not uncovering the scourge that is drunken beer-belly dancing (although I’ll admit this might only be a growing problem in my immediate neighborhood).

Sun Come Up (Director: Jennifer Redfearn, USA/Papua New Guinea, 38 mins.) Sun Come Up tells the story of some of the world’s first environmental refugees, the Carteret Islanders. The film follows relocation leader Ursula Rakova and a group of young families as they search for new homes in war torn Bougainville, an autonomous region of Papua New Guinea.

Redfearn’s Bachelor’s degree in Environmental studies from Wellesley College and her Master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University are serving her well. She also recently completed When the Water Ends, about climate change in East Africa.

The Warriors of Quigang (Director: Ruby Yang, USA, 39 mins.) Villagers in a remote district of central China take on a chemical company that is poisoning their water and air. For five years they fight to transform their environment and as they do, they find themselves transformed as well.

Crib Notes: Unlike the animated and live-action categories, whose shorts are usually made with film festivals in mind, the documentary category is hampered by more restraints because docs are usually made the television market in mind, and television shows are disqualified from Oscar consideration. (Other restraints on all shorts are that they cannot be longer than 40 minutes, be ads, unsold pilots, episodes, or music videos.) The selected docs above offer an interesting range in topics: terrorism, post-traumatic stress disorder, human interest, climate change, and toxic pollution. The smart money gives the first two (Killing in the Name and Poster Girl) an edge over the competition. Both being equally compelling, it’s hard to figure out what factor will produce a tie-breaker – but if I had to guess, I’d put the money on Killing in the Name.

ANIMATED SHORTS

Madagascar, Carnet de Voyage (Director: Bastien Duboi, France, 11 mins.) This film is a journey diary that redraws the trip of a European traveler confronted with Famadihana customs. As pages of a diary turn, colorful pencil sketches to life, revealing the majestic rolling landscapes of Madagascar, and acquanting the audience to the people of the Malagasy culture.

Dubois is a young director (born 1983) with a background in creating web sties and video game animation. His passion for travel led him to Madagascar and inspired this short film about the island.

Let’s Pollute (Director: Geefwee Boedoe, USA, 6 mins.) In the spirit of 50′s & 60′s educational films, Let’s Pollute is a modern satire on how pollution is our heritage and keeps our economy growing strong, while instructing us how to be better polluters for a better blighted tomorrow.

Boedoe has worked as an animator since 1988 and chalked up experience working with all the big names: Pixar, ILM, DreamWorks, etc. (He designed, for example, the opening title sequence to Monsters, Inc.).

The Gruffalo (Directors: Max Lang, Jacob Schuh, UK/Germany, 27 mins.) The magical tale of a mouse who takes a walk through the woods in search of a nut. Encountering three predators who all wish to eat him – a fox, an owl and a snake – the plucky mouse has to use his wits to survive, creating an imaginary monster who then turns out to be all too real.

Schuh is a caricaturist and illustrator for the Süddeutsche Zeiting, while Lang has a background as a storyboard artist and animator – this is his first commercial film as director.

The Lost Thing (Directors: Andrew Ruhemann, Shaun Tan, Australia/UK, 15 mins.) A boy discovers a bizarre looking creature while out collecting bottle tops at the beach. Realizing it is lost, he tries to find out who owns it or where it belongs, but is met with indifference from everyone else, who barely notice its presence, each unwilling to entertain this uninvited interruption to their day to day lives. For reasons he does not explain, the boy empathizes with the creature, and sets out to find a ‘place’ for it.

Ruhemann’s production company, Passion Pictures Australia, has its fingerprints on all kinds of projects, including work with the animated band Gorillaz and The Beatles: Rock Band game. His co-director, Tan, wrote and illustrated the book upon which this film is based.

Day & Night (Director: Teddy Newton, USA, 6 mins.) When Day, a sunny fellow, encounters Night, a stranger of distinctly darker moods, sparks fly! Day and Night are frightened and suspicious of each other at first, and quickly get off on the wrong foot. But as they discover each other’s unique qualities – and come to realize that each of them offers a different window onto the same world – the friendship helps both to gain a new perspective.

Crib Notes: As a rule of thumb, outside of the assembled package that’s made available to select theaters, it’s pretty hard to see most of these shorts. The exception here is Pixar’s Day & Night, which they slapped in front of Toy Story 3 - making it the one short most people will already be familiar with. That will probably help its odds for getting the Oscar – and many critics already have it leading the pack anyway.

Side note: Since this animation program clocks in at 65 minutes, two “bonus” shorts were added by Shorts International to beef up the length of this program to something closer to the running time of a normal feature:

The Cow Who Wanted to be a Hamburger (Director: Bill Plympton, USA, 6 mins.) This is a children’s fable about the power of advertising, the meaning of life, and ultimately the test of a mother’s life.

The title says it all – but suffice to say there is a change of heart once the titular cow sees what’s really involved.

URS (Director: Moritz Mayerhofer, Germany, 10 mins.) For many years Urs has had to look after his aging mother. But now he sets out for a dangerous joureny: He carries his mother up a mountain to find a better place for both of them. But she wants to stay at home.

LIVE ACTION SHORTS

The Confession (Director Tanel Toom, UK, 26 mins.) Quiet and sincere, 9-year-old Sam is worried about making his first confession at church. As his conscience is clear, he therefore cannot hope for any relief from the experience. He and his friend Jacob decide to remedy that situation, but their initially innocent prank turns unexpectedly tragic.

Toom’s background is as a director of commercials and The Confession is his 5th short film.

Wish 143 (Director Ian Barnes, UK, 24 mins.) A fifteen-year-old boy with only months to live is granted one wish from the Dreamscape Charity. But David doesn’t want to go to Disneyland or meet Gary Neville; what he really wants is an hour alone with a naked woman.

This is Barne’s second short film. His first one, Swing, “graphically showed how adultery can seriously damage your health.” (I have to admit that one piqued my interest and I quickly looked to see if I could find it on YouTube – no dice.)

Na Wewe (Director Ivan Goldschmidt, Belgium, 19 mins.) 1994: There is civil war in Burundi, a small country of Central Africa directly bordering Rwanda. A near genocidal confrontation opposes rebels mainly composed of ethnic Hutus and a national army with a majority of Tutsis. This short film relates a sadly frequent episode of this fratricidal conflict: the attack by rebels of a minivan carrying ordinary citizens. It begins when Kalashnikov are burst out. The bus stops, the passengers get off. An order is barked: “Hutus to the left, Tutsis to the right!” The sorting out begins. But who is a Hutu, who is a Tutsi? This story is entirely based on real people and situations. It was written by a person who has lived in the beauty of Burundi and suffered its horrors. With emotion, suspense and humor it exposes the absurdity of ethnic and racial strife. “NA WEWE” (pronounce “Na wayway”) means “You too” in Kirundi.

Writer-Director-Producer Ivan Goldschmidt clearly likes being a multihyphenate, and, in addition to being a film director, lists a background in advertising, theater stage directing, sculpting, and painting.

The Crush (Director: MIchael Creagh, Ireland, 15 mins.) An 8-year-old schoolboy is so besotted with his teacher that he challenges her boyfriend to a duel to the death.

Creagh was born in Belfast and moved to Dublin to follow a career in advertising. This is his debut short film.

God of Love (Director: Luke Matheny, USA, 18 mins.) Lounge-singing darts champion Raymond Goodfellow finds his prayers are answered — literally — when he receives a mysterious package of passion-inducing darts. The catch is that the one woman he loves — Kelly, a drummer in his band — is already in love with Ray’s best friend Fozzie, the guitarist in the band. But when Ray uses the darts in a loony scheme to resolve this strange romantic triangle, he learns a surprising lesson about unrequited love and discovers his own place in the universe. Romance is in the air in this bohemian charmer.

Crib Notes: Talking with viewers who came out of the Live Action program my sense was that the two shorts that had the best shot at the trophy were either Na Wewe or Wish 143. The caveat is that Na Wewe had as many people trashing it as people to sing its praises. Wish 143, on the other hand, won most people over – so I’m guessing it’s got a better shot at the prize.

Caveat to all gamblers: if you’re putting down serious money on Killing in the Name, Day & Night, and Wish 143, I cannot take responsibility for your losses. The Oscars has always been a crapshoot, and it’s not helped any by the fact that Academy members can vote on things they haven’t even seen. As far as I’m concerned, the selection process is akin to waiting to see whether the ballots cast by cardinals voting on the next Pope emit either white or black smoke from the  chimney of the Vatican Palace. To be sure, you’re better off asking the Pope for his Oscar picks, since he’s the infallible one. That guy could do some serious damage in Vegas, too bad he’s against gambling. Me? I’m the anti-Pope; both fallible and a regular fixture at the poker table. It’s not the greatest combo in the world, but I have my share of fun – and the perk is that I don’t have to wear pointy hats or hide behind bullet-proof glass.