ACADEMY PRESENTS 77TH SHORT FILMS TO PUBLI

"Short films are like poems," said Oscar­ nominated short film director (and actress) Oscar Show Is ., • JoBeth Williams. "Everything is about com­ Simulcast in Spanish pression. Every frame has to be meaningful." . • ~ "> Williams, who was nominated in 1994 for The 77th .. , , i her live-action short film "On Hope," moderated ... ,' , telecast was simultaneously .- ... .~~- the Samuel Goldwyn Theater discussions that translated and broadcast with a IN NEW YORK, followed the Oscar Week screening of the ("GUARD DOG") WITH MODERATOR Spanish-language SAP audio 10 short films that received Oscar nominations ROBERT OSBORNE. track. (SAP stands for in the Animated and Live Action Short Film Secondary Audio Program, a categories for the 77th Academy Awards. All but one of the 14 nominated feature on almost every stereo filmmakers were in attendance. television set purchased in the The shorts screened in front of capacity crowds the week before the last decade.) Awards at the Goldwyn in , the Academy Theater at Lighthouse Two female and two male International in Manhattan and in Washington, D.C., at the National Archives. translators from SMartSports, It was the first time that the five nominated films in each of these two Inc., covered the evening as categories was shown to the public by the Academy in Los Angeles prior to they have for the past three the Oscar telecast. In previous years a public screening of the short film years. "This allowed us maxi­ nominees took place in the months following the Awards. It was, though, mum flexibility in covering an the second year of a pre-telecast screening in New York. event that emphasizes improvi­ "Traditionally, short films aren't distributed as widely as feature-length sation and quick interpretation films , so we've wanted to give the public an opportunity to see these as well as multiple combinations nominees before the telecast," said Ric Robertson, the Academy's executive of presenters and honorees," administrator. "It worked well in New York last year, and Oscar Week in said Alvaro Martin, president of LA provides a great time frame for the Academy to present this program. SMartS ports. I think it will become a perennial component of Oscar Week." "The Oscar show is very challenging for our talent, as there are many humorous asides that sometimes only insiders can fully appreciate," Martin added. "And some of the humor is idiosyncratic, and thus difficult to translate. But our crew annually delivers as com­ plete and faithful a version of this experience to Spanish-pre­ ferred households as possible. It allows those viewers to fully appreciate an event that con­ nects them with the American mainstream. "

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