Focus up.” After giving out the first award, Nanjiani took a beat, joking, “Ironic that the short-film Oscar is gonna take twice as long.” Then he announced the second winner, “Two People Exchanging Saliva,” written and directed by Alexandre Singh and Natalie Musteata, and released by The New Yorker. Natalie’s speech highlighted how exciting it is to have recognition for a film “that is weird, and that is queer, and that is made by a majority of women.” Do you think this quirk of Oscars history could bring more attention to the shorts categories in general? The critic Justin Chang notes that the evening was marked by a “faintly elegiac cloud,” and that, despite the political ferocity of the films being honored this year, the principal preoccupation was Hollywood and “the encroaching threat of irrelevance.”
Author: Ian Crouch
Published at: 2026-03-16 23:01:26
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