YouTube opens doors to Oscar-winning films
December 4, 2009 12:45 pm Film festivals and awards, Internet
A young boy helps out a pair of down-on-their-heels crooks in "Mozart of the Pickpockets"
YouTube introduces viewers to Oscar winner “Mozart of the Pickpockets”
Welcome to the YouTube Screening Room.
In keeping with its vox populi outlook, the popular video-sharing site is presenting four short films that, it says, “represent some of the best work coming out of the film festival circuit today.
“The first two are proof that compelling stories can be conveyed in minutes. The second two showcase the groundbreaking strides being made in stop-motion.”
The undisputed gem in the collection is “Mozart of the Pickpockets,” a French short that won Best Live Action Short Film at the 2008 Oscars.
Written and directed by Philippe Pollet-Villard, the 30-minute film follows Phillipe and Richard, two impoverished friends who fall in with a gang of Spanish pickpockets in Paris. When they discover a deaf-mute immigrant boy on the streets, Richard insists that they take him in.
The quiet, unassuming child turns out to be the answer to their prayers.
“Two Cars, One Night,” nominated for an Oscar in 2005, chronicles the relationship between two kids who meet at a rural New Zealand car park.
Slamdance Film Festival winner “Doxology” is, as YouTube puts it, “an experimental comedy about tennis balls, dancing cars and God.” And Oscar nominee “Madame Tutli-Putli” is a fascinating, if slightly disturbing, journey into the world of stop-motion animation.
You can check out other award-winning short films at the YouTube Screening Room.
