Ah, best documentary short. Always a mystery. Always annoyingly obscure. Let's see exactly what we can find out about the four nominees this year.
Freeheld- Trailer
Director: Cynthia Wade, first time Oscar nominee
Subject: Doesn't get much more moving than this- a dying New Jersey policewoman wants to secure her pension for her lesbian life partner of six years- but of course, can't. It chronicles the efforts of activists to sway the will of the "freeholders" in charge of the pension board before she dies.
La Corona- (interview with Micheli)
Director: Amanda Micheli/Isabel Vega- first time Oscar nominees
Subject: A "character driven" piece about a beauty pagent in a women's prison. Seems like a longshot.
Salim Baba (official site) (interview with producer)
Director: Tim Sternberg, another first timer
Subject: A 14-minute affair about a man from north Calcutta that earns a living by "screening discarded film fragments for neighborhood children on a hand-cranked projector bequeathed to him by his father." Sounds interesting, but slight once again.
Sari's Mother (official site)
Director: James Longley, Oscar nominated director of last 2006's Feature Documentary Iraq in Fragments.
Subject: A mother tries to care for her HIV infected, ten year old son in war torn Iraq.
So it sounds like a tossup between Freeheld and Sari's Mother, based on the subject test. Too bad we can't know anything more. I would guess that Longley's relative name recognition, and the more hot-button issue of Iraq would push the latter film to the podium (plus we know how the Academy feels about gay people, don't we?).
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