Disney Has Submitted A Star Wars: Visions Short For Academy Award Consideration

The 94th annual Academy Awards are just four months away, which means filmmakers and studios are already gearing up to campaign their projects for Oscar consideration. One of the industry's most powerful entities, Disney, is known for its tenured success with family animation, but the entertainment goliath is also pursuing Oscar recognition for their Star Wars properties. We've just learned that Disney has officially submitted "The Village Bride," one of its "Star Wars: Visions" anime short films for consideration in the Best Animated Short Film category. Disney hosted a theatrical screening of the 18-minute short at the Disney-owned El Capitan Theater in Los Angeles, making the film eligible despite its original release on Disney+.

Directed by Hitoshi Haga and written by Takahito Oonishi & Hitoshi Haga, "The Village Bride" takes place years after the Great Jedi Purge, when a fallen Jedi named "F" arrives on a remote planet with an explorer named Valco who explains that old Separatist battle droids have been reprogrammed by bandit raiders, and the droids are holding a village hostage. Haru, the village chief's daughter and her fiancé Asu plan on surrendering to the bandits, while Haru's sister Saku wants to fight. It's up to F and Valco to get to the bottom of the hostage situation, assist the villagers, and stop the bandits from destroying the town.

If "The Village Bride" is granted Oscar contention, the short film will become the 12th nomination belonging to a "Star Wars" related property. The "Star Wars: Visions" collection was a collaboration between seven different anime studios to create brand new stories featuring original and existing "Star Wars" characters and environments. It's an interesting choice to nominate "The Village Bride," considering it is one of the only wholly unique short films set in the "Star Wars" universe, focusing on entirely new characters with the exception of the battle droids.

"The Village Bride" is not the only short film being submitted by Disney for the upcoming award season. The studio has also submitted "Us Again," a Disney+ exclusive short that was attached to the theatrical run of "Raya and the Last Dragon," and two shorts from Pixar Animation, "Twentysomething" and "Nona," which were both released as part of the "SparkShorts" series on Disney+. There's no guarantee that any of the shorts will be nominated, but given Disney and Pixar's history, it's likely that at least one of them will earn a spot.

The entire series of "Star Wars: Visions" is available for streaming on Disney+.