Seth Abramovitch, writing for The Hollywood Reporter:

During a pivotal scene in Gravity, Sandra Bullock's character Ryan Stone, trapped inside a Russian space capsule with little hope of survival, makes contact with a male voice speaking via radio in a foreign language. What unfolds on the other end of that fractured conversation, complete with a barking dog and a crying baby, is the subject of a short film by Jonas Cuaron, son of director Alfonso Cuaron, who co-wrote the screenplay for Warner Bros.' $500 million-grossing awards contender with his father. That seven-minute companion piece, titled Aningaaq, was financed by Warner Home Video, which initially envisioned it as a unique extra feature for Gravity's Blu-ray edition. But the stark, contemplative Aningaaq has developed a life of its own via festival screenings at Venice and Telluride. Now Warners has submitted it for Oscar consideration in the live-action short category; should it snag a nomination alongside its sure-bet blockbuster companion, they are poised to make Academy Awards history as the first feature and spinoff short drawn from the same material to be nominated together in the same year.

What an interesting experiment. To be able to see another orbiting body (no space pun intended) and how it connects to something we're already familiar with in a fictional universe is one thing. But for it to be an artistic success in its own right? Pretty impressive.

Oh, and, uh—spoiler alert.

/via WIRED

Joe Stracci