João Gonzalez directs Ice Merchants, one of the 15 2023 Academy Awards Best Animated Short Film finalists. It’s about a father and son who live in a house on the edge of a cliff. Each day, they dive way, way down, providing ice to townspeople. Their lives are exciting… and quite dangerous. Gonzalez details the making of Ice Merchants in this Animation Scoop Q&A. (This interview was conducted as an Email Q&A and was edited for length and clarity.)

Jackson Murphy: What did you want to explore with this unique father-son relationship?

João Gonzalez: I believe that the film explores metaphorically how those small interactions and rituals that we have with our close ones everyday (in this case between the father and son), even if we almost take them from granted and don’t pay too much attention to them, are part of the foundation of meaningful human relationships. And that “foundation” grows stronger every day. Although it is a film mainly about loss, I think it is hopeful at the same time.

My Year of Dicks is one of the 15 finalists for the 2023 Best Animated Short Film Oscar. Director Sara Gunnarsdottir, writer Pamela Ribon and producer Jeanette Jeanenne present a memorable year in the life of a teen girl, who goes through some personal ups and downs, learning what it truly means to have a strong romantic relationship and an even stronger friendship. Here’s my Animation Scoop Q&A with the team. (This interview was conducted as an Email Q&A and was edited for length and clarity.)

Jackson Murphy: This is adapted from a memoir. It’s set in 1991. How did you discover that animation could be the best way to share these memories and tell this story in a visually interesting and, at the same time, personal way?

Pamela Ribon: Having worked in the incredibly large and corporate culture of big-studio animated films, I wanted to find a more personal, independent route to help lead an animation pipeline. When the opportunity arrived to adapt my “mortifying memoir” Notes to Boys (and Other Things I Shouldn’t Share in Public) for animation, it was an overwhelming concept at first. The memoir has adult me talking about a younger me who was writing all these lengthy notes to crushes… and then often calling up those very crushes on the phone and reading the letters to them. (I told you it was mortifying.)

Uri Lotan is the director of Black Slide, one of the 15 finalists for this year’s Best Animated Short Film Academy Award. It’s based on true events from his childhood. A boy named Eviah is nervous about going down a massive, black slide at a water park. But there’s more that’s on his mind. Lotan shares with me how his personal experiences greatly influenced his comedy-drama short. (This Animation Scoop Q&A was edited for length and clarity.)

Uri Lotan: It’s been a crazy ride so far. It feels amazing. It’s incredible. It’s an amazing honor to be amongst such awesome films and to see all this exposure. Everybody’s coming from all these different countries, with different types of films. It’s super exciting and quite a whirlwind. It’s been awesome.

Stop-motion animation legend Andy Gent, who teamed-up with Wes Anderson on Fantastic Mr. Fox and Isle of Dogs, also worked on The Humane Society’s campaign and short film Save Ralph. It’s about a rabbit who’s a tester for cosmetics. Through Taika Waititi’s voice work as the title character, and the animation work from Gent and his team, the campaign to eliminate animal cosmetics testing has already been quite effective. The short is also one of the 15 finalists for the 2023 Best Animated Short Film Academy Award. Gent and I talk about Save Ralph and his upcoming Anderson collaborations. (This Animation Scoop Q&A was edited for length and clarity.)

Andy Gent: It’s very exciting. We were very pleased to hear that it was going to make it to that stage.

Jackson Murphy: This short and campaign have been around for a little bit. How did you first get involved with The Humane Society on this?

Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis are no strangers to the prestige of the Academy Awards. Tilbis was on the Best Animated Short Film ballot for 1991’s “Strings”. She and Forbis were nominated for 1999’s “When the Day Breaks” and 2011’s “Wild Life”. They’re in contention once again — on the 2023 Oscar shortlist for The Flying Sailor. They spoke about their experience making this “based on a true story” short. (This Animation Scoop Q&A was edited for length and clarity.)

Amanda Forbis: It feels really good.

Wendy Tilby: It’s a strong year. We feel very pleased to be part of it.

Jackson Murphy: Where does the true story for The Flying Sailor come from?

WT: True but obscure. Hopefully we’re making it less obscure. We were in Halifax, Nova Scotia about 20 years ago, and we happened to be at the Maritime Museum [of the Atlantic] there. And they have a whole area devoted to the Halifax Explosion. Canadians are [fairly] familiar with it, particularly since the 100th anniversary was a few years ago. It happened in 1917. It was a catastrophic event. Two ships collided. One of them was full of explosives. There were many terrible stories, but there was one tiny blurb we read about this one sailor who was launched by the blast, flew for two kilometers, landed in a green space uphill, naked except for one boot, and was basically fine. We thought, “Holy smokes! That’s an amazing story.”

It’s Nice in Here is one of the 15 finalists for the 2023 Best Animated Short Film Oscar. This has been a passion project for director Robert-Jonathan Koeyers, who joins me for this Animation Scoop Q&A to discuss the powerful, thorough short that presents multiple sides to a complicated, heartbreaking story of two best friends and a police officer. (This interview was edited for length and clarity.)

Robert-Jonathan Koeyers: It’s absolutely surreal. We have such a tiny movie, and the entire year… has been so surreal. World Premiere at Cannes and now making it onto the shortlist for the Oscars. It’s like a childhood dream and it’s surreal to believe.

Jackson Murphy: How was that experience at Cannes?

RJK: Equally surreal. (laughs) You’re working for such a long time on a film in your little attic by yourself… well, with a team who’s working remotely… and then suddenly for the film to be out there and for people to engage with it in Cannes was… indescribable.

Elizabeth Hobbs is on the 2023 Oscars shortlist for The Debutante. It’s about a young woman who befriends a hyena. They seek to shatter the norms of behavior and societal expectations in shocking, wild ways. This is an animated short that will definitely get people talking. (This Animation Scoop interview with Hobbs was conducted as an Email Q&A and was edited for length and clarity.)

Jackson Murphy: What interested you in the short story your film is based on?

Elizabeth Hobbs: The film is based on a short story called The Debutante. It was written by the surrealist artist Leonora Carrington in the late 1930’s, and it’s loosely inspired by her own experience of rejecting the grand life that was planned for her by her parents. When I first read The Debutante I found it so startling, funny, and fresh and the themes really resonated with me. We were lucky to get permission from the Estate of Leonora Carrington to adapt the story.