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OSCAR SHORTS www.postmagazine.com 25 POST JAN/FEB 2023 ry, and the vast nature helped the film elevate to a more poetic visual tale," Walter concludes. The Red Suitcase The Red Suitcase, from director Cyrus Neshvad, reveals the heartbreaking story of a 16-year-old Iranian girl, who's been sent to Luxembourg to meet a man that her family has arranged for her to marry. After arriving at Luxembourg Airport with only a single suitcase, the girl is hesitant to meet the man and begin her new life. Instead, she does all she can to avoid him and escape the airport undetected. At the same time, her father — the financial beneficiary of the arrangement — is trying to track her by phone. The Red Suitcase is a nominee in the Live Action Short category, having won an award at the Tirana International Film Festival before making the short- list. The project was written by Guillaume Levil and Neshvad more than two years ago as a way to bring attention to the humanitarian issues women are facing in Iran — an issue that has more recently come to the world's attention with so many having gone missing. Neshvad is a Luxembourg-based director of Iranian origin and says he could identify with the young woman's (played by French actress Nawelle Evad) feelings of loneliness when arriving in a new country. Neshvad has directed several short films, including The Orchid, Antoine, Son and Portraitist, which have all been produced by Cynefilms. The short's somber tone is enhanced by composer Kyan Bayani's score. "I was surprised and proud," says Neshvad of the film being shortlisted and then nominated. The Red Suitcase takes place over the course of just a few hours, but involved seven days of shooting. "We used (Arri's) Alexa and anamorphic lenses to show how huge the airport is," Neshvad recalls. Short focal lengths helped reinforce the fact that she was alone at night in an unfamiliar place. The edit, he notes, was a challenge, as his initial thought was to go with faced-paced cutting, only to ultimately slow it down. "We needed to be very slow," he explains. "The slower we got, it also gave us opportunity to be more inside her head." Dialogue is also minimal. Instead, the girl's actions and reactions to the circumstances hold the viewer's attention. The color red represents her heart, and is reinforced by how tightly she holds the luggage. The bus that she escapes in was specifically selected for its red curtains and the industrial storage area, where she hides, much like a migrant would when trying to escape persecution. Red lighting is also used to show the connection between her heart and the contents of the luggage. "I hope they will take away loneliness and tender- ness of this Iranian girl," says Neshvad of the film. The Letter Men The Oscar-qualified short The Letter Men is based on the largest-surviving collection of LGBTQ+ love letters from the WWII timeframe. Directed by Andrew Vallentine, the eight-minute short shares letters written by Gordon Bowsher to Gilbert Bradley between 1938 and 1941 while England was fighting in World War II. The letters, which were un- covered in 2017, are unique in that they were never burned to protect the respective parties. In fact, in one correspondence, Bowsher dreams of their story being published at a later and more accept- ing point in time. The Letter Men stars Garrett Clayton (NBC's Hairspray Live!, King Cobra) and Matthew Postlethwaite (Netflix's Peaky Blinders). Ninety percent of the cast and crew of The Letter Men identify as LGBTQ+, with Andrew Vallentine having co-written the project with his husband, Danny Vallentine. The live-action short film was produced by Cameron Hutchison, Mike Diaz and Siddharth Ganji, with Oren Soffer serving as its director of photography. According to Vallentine, the project was shot using an Arri Alexa Mini and Cooke S4 lenses. "We edited the short in Adobe Premiere," he recalls, noting that Blackmagic Design's DaVinci Resolve was used for the color grade. The Lone Wolf The Lone Wolf (O Lobo Solitário) is an Oscar- qualified short film from director Filipe Melo. The short stars Adriano Luz as Viva FM's late-night radio host, who receives a call on-air accusing him of something serious. The call could ultimately change his life. The Lone Wolf won a Sophia Award from The Portuguese Academy, and is unique in that it plays as one continuous shot. The film was produced by Sandra Faria and shot by Vasco Viana. "Since it was a continuous shot, we could only edit the sound of the calls," explains the director. "The calls were being made in realtime, but we could actually edit sound for the voice actors who played the callers. Also, since we had a lot of movie magic to make — because we had a webcam in the scene, and our real camera would eventu- ally show — we needed a pro. My friend Carlos Conceição coordinated a small VFX crew. He is the best — such an incredible guy. He helped me go through a soundproof glass with the camera, among many other things. He is now working on The Mandalorian, Boba Fett and so forth, but at that point we were in confinement, so he was in Portugal, and we could really work together." The Lone Wolf is represented by H264, whose previous films Marguerite and Fauve were nominat- ed for Academy Awards. The Letter Men was edited in Premiere DaVinci Resolve was used for the color grade. The short was shot in one continuous take. The Lone Wolf director Filipe Melo. Red lighting was used in several scenes. The Red Suitcase was shot over seven days.