The Academy skewed dark in its choice of live-action shorts this year, selecting four films to slit your wrists by — each one featuring child endangerment in a different form — and a fifth, about a diabetic on her death bed, that finds a glimmer of uplift at the other end of life. If that sounds like a complaint, think again: All too often, the Academy falls for either lightweight comedic shorts or over-earnest social-issue dramas, whereas this lot consists of several genuinely well-tooled micro-thrillers. It’s just a lot to stomach in a single, two-hour sitting.
The theatrical program opens with Spanish director Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s Goya-winning “Madre,” which begins with a slow pan of an empty beach — meaningless at first, but setting the stage for a parental nightmare that plays out entirely in the audience’s imagination. Like Gustav Möller’s nail-biting Danish feature “The Guilty,” this short conjures an...
The theatrical program opens with Spanish director Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s Goya-winning “Madre,” which begins with a slow pan of an empty beach — meaningless at first, but setting the stage for a parental nightmare that plays out entirely in the audience’s imagination. Like Gustav Möller’s nail-biting Danish feature “The Guilty,” this short conjures an...
- 2/23/2019
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
Detainment, about one of the most notorious murders of all time, caused outrage when it was nominated for an Oscar. So why did its director make it?
‘It certainly wasn’t a career move,” says Vincent Lambe. “ I was told by everyone that this subject wouldn’t make my career – it would break it.”
The 38-year-old Irish director is responding to me asking if he made Detainment – his Oscar-nominated short film based on transcripts of the police interrogation of Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, the 10-year-old boys who murdered two-year-old James Bulger in 1993 – to establish himself as a director.
‘It certainly wasn’t a career move,” says Vincent Lambe. “ I was told by everyone that this subject wouldn’t make my career – it would break it.”
The 38-year-old Irish director is responding to me asking if he made Detainment – his Oscar-nominated short film based on transcripts of the police interrogation of Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, the 10-year-old boys who murdered two-year-old James Bulger in 1993 – to establish himself as a director.
- 2/22/2019
- by Stuart Jeffries
- The Guardian - Film News
Ahead of the Academy Awards, we’re reviewing each short category. See the Live Action section below and the other shorts sections here.
Detainment – Ireland – 30 minutes
Two ten-year-old boys were placed into police custody in 1993 on suspicion of kidnapping and murdering the not-yet three-year-old James Bulger in Merseyside, England. They were interrogated separately with parents present about their whereabouts on that fateful day and whether or not they were guilty of the crime. It’s unfathomable to believe children so young could have done what they did, but it’s even harder to comprehend them lying about it when the truth starts to spill out. These interviews were recorded and eventually released as a matter of public record with certain tapes remaining sealed due to the graphic nature of what was described. The pair served eight years with appeals of fair trial violations reducing their sentences before receiving new identities in the aftermath.
Detainment – Ireland – 30 minutes
Two ten-year-old boys were placed into police custody in 1993 on suspicion of kidnapping and murdering the not-yet three-year-old James Bulger in Merseyside, England. They were interrogated separately with parents present about their whereabouts on that fateful day and whether or not they were guilty of the crime. It’s unfathomable to believe children so young could have done what they did, but it’s even harder to comprehend them lying about it when the truth starts to spill out. These interviews were recorded and eventually released as a matter of public record with certain tapes remaining sealed due to the graphic nature of what was described. The pair served eight years with appeals of fair trial violations reducing their sentences before receiving new identities in the aftermath.
- 2/5/2019
- by Jared Mobarak
- The Film Stage
Denise Fergus, mother of the late James Bulger, is speaking out against the short film “Detainment,” after it received an Oscar nomination for Best Live Action Short Film. Directed by Vincent Lambe, “Detainment” is a 30-minute short film about the police interrogations of Bulger’s killers, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson. The narrative film uses real transcripts and interview tapes from the interrogations. Venables and Thompson were 10 years old when they murdered two-year-old Bulger.
“I cannot express how disgusted and upset I am at this so-called film that has been made and now nominated for an Oscar,” Fergus said on Twitter. “It’s one thing making a film like this without contacting or getting permission from James’s family but another to have a child reenact the final hours of James’s life before he was brutally murdered and making myself and my family have to relive this all over again!
“I cannot express how disgusted and upset I am at this so-called film that has been made and now nominated for an Oscar,” Fergus said on Twitter. “It’s one thing making a film like this without contacting or getting permission from James’s family but another to have a child reenact the final hours of James’s life before he was brutally murdered and making myself and my family have to relive this all over again!
- 1/23/2019
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
Denise Fergus and Ralph Bulger attack shortlisting of Detainment, a drama based on the police interrogation of Robert Thompson and Jon Venables
James Bulger’s parents have expressed their disgust after the film about their two-year-old son’s killers was nominated for the best live-action short film Oscar.
Detainment, written and directed by Irish film-maker Vincent Lambe, is a reconstruction of the police interrogation of Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, the 10-year-olds convicted of Bulger’s murder in 1993.
James Bulger’s parents have expressed their disgust after the film about their two-year-old son’s killers was nominated for the best live-action short film Oscar.
Detainment, written and directed by Irish film-maker Vincent Lambe, is a reconstruction of the police interrogation of Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, the 10-year-olds convicted of Bulger’s murder in 1993.
- 1/23/2019
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
Bulger’s parents argue Detainment, a short film about the 1993 case, is sympathetic to the toddler’s murderers and shouldn’t have been made
The parents of James Bulger, the two-year-old boy murdered in Liverpool in 1993, have criticised the makers of a short film about the case, which has been shortlisted for an Oscar nomination.
Detainment, written and directed by Irish film-maker Vincent Lambe, is based on transcripts of the police interrogation of Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, who were 10 years old at the time and were subsequently convicted of the murder. It won best short film and special jury award in 2018 at the Young Director Award, a fringe event that takes place during the Cannes Lions festival (which in turn is separate from the high profile Cannes international film festival), and went on to win the grand prix at the Odense film festival in Denmark, which qualified it to...
The parents of James Bulger, the two-year-old boy murdered in Liverpool in 1993, have criticised the makers of a short film about the case, which has been shortlisted for an Oscar nomination.
Detainment, written and directed by Irish film-maker Vincent Lambe, is based on transcripts of the police interrogation of Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, who were 10 years old at the time and were subsequently convicted of the murder. It won best short film and special jury award in 2018 at the Young Director Award, a fringe event that takes place during the Cannes Lions festival (which in turn is separate from the high profile Cannes international film festival), and went on to win the grand prix at the Odense film festival in Denmark, which qualified it to...
- 1/8/2019
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
Digging into the dark underbelly of the human psyche can be an ugly business. Just ask any of those involved in the making of some of horror’s most notorious movies. As filmmaking and storytelling methods evolve, it allows more freedom to those who choose to explore areas that many would prefer remain hidden. But this often prompts us to ask rabidly debated questions like, ‘Just how far is too far?’
Way before the days when watching a film banned in your country was simply a matter of a quick illegal download to side step the censors, the MPAA and BBFC were much more of a force to be reckoned with. Now it seems that films are usually old news way before the censors can even touch them.
We have highlighted seven films that were particularly contentious for audiences and censors alike. Most are from those dark days before the internet,...
Way before the days when watching a film banned in your country was simply a matter of a quick illegal download to side step the censors, the MPAA and BBFC were much more of a force to be reckoned with. Now it seems that films are usually old news way before the censors can even touch them.
We have highlighted seven films that were particularly contentious for audiences and censors alike. Most are from those dark days before the internet,...
- 12/12/2013
- by Aaron Williams
- FEARnet
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