This year, there is one film by an Israeli nominated for an Oscar, Tal Kantor’s Letter to a Pig, which is predicted to win in the Best Animated Short category.
It’s a haunting and beautiful look at a girl listening to a Holocaust survivor tell the story of how his life was saved during the war by a pig he hid behind. As the elderly man talks and some of her classmates poke fun at him, she becomes consumed by his story and imagines herself in a weird fantasy landscape, facing an ever-transforming incarnation of that pig.
The film was produced by The Hive Studio, which has locations in Jerusalem, Sderot, and Tel Aviv, as well as Miyu Productions, a European production studio.
Kantor is an award-winning independent animation filmmaker and visual artist who graduated with honors from the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem, where she currently lectures at the screen-based arts department.
In her animated works, she uses a unique technique she has developed, which combines drawing, photography, video, painting, and animation to create stunning, unforgettable images.
The short film is already critically acclaimed and the winner of several awards
Her short animated film, In Other Words, won 17 awards and was officially selected to participate in more than 100 festivals worldwide. Letter to a Pig won the Excellence Award at the Japan Media Arts Festival in 2022.
Unlike in the Best International Feature category, where every country picks a single film to represent it, the nominees in the Best Animated Short category are not submitted by countries but are chosen individually.
So, while Kantor is an Israeli who has made a film that is nominated, she is not officially representing Israel. But that won’t stop Israelis from rooting for her, just as we did when Guy Nattiv’s short film, Skin, produced with Jaime Ray Newman and written with Sharon Maymon, won an Oscar for Best Live Animated Short in 2019.
Letter to a Pig is available on Hot VOD and Yes VOD.