El Ombligo de la Luna by Julia Grupińska, Tian Westraad, and Ezequiel Garibay
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has unveiled its list of finalists for the 2024 Student Academy Awards, featuring four shorts by US Latinx and Latin American emerging filmmakers in the Alternative/Experimental, Animation, and Documentary competitions.
In the Documentary section, Jerhy by Costa Rican-born John Ortiz from the University of California, Santa Cruz, was named a finalist. The short film follows a Costa Rican filmmaker, haunted by the murder of a man he never met, as he pieces together the elusive life of Indigenous landback activist Jerhy Rivera.
In the Alternative/Experimental section, two short films by US Latinx and Latin American directors were selected: the Argentine film Crescendo by María Agostina Menna Galetto from the Universidad Abierta Interamericana, and Wired by Daniel Salas from Chapman University.
A poetic and visually captivating exploration of loneliness, voicelessness, and the search for human connection, Crescendo is an emotional short film that explores a young dancer's quest for understanding in a world that ignores her. Through abstract and symbolic scenes, we follow her inner journey, culminating in an unexpected encounter that offers her a glimmer of hope and a moment of feeling understood. In Wired, a psychiatric patient struggles to maintain control after undergoing an experimental corpus-brain procedure that entangles his mind with the consciousness of a former subject.
Lastly, El Ombligo de la Luna by Julia Grupińska, Tian Westraad, and Ezequiel Garibay from the French school Gobelins was announced as a semifinalist in the Animation competition. The film tells the story of Chava, a Mexican mechanic on the verge of having his beloved car repossessed, who receives an unexpected visit from Nacho, his long-abandoned son. Nacho, carrying his late mother’s ashes, asks Chava to take them to the moon to fulfill her last wish. Together, they embark on an adventure in an old red VW Beetle to find the navel of the moon.
The winners of the 2024 Student Academy Awards will be announced at a ceremony in London on Monday, October 14, 2024.
Visit the Academy’s site to learn more.
