Fox Searchlight has acquired a pair of short films acquired at the Toronto Film Festival and has set one-week Oscar-qualifying runs beginning today in Los Angeles for both of them.
The pics, the A.V. Rockwell-directed Feathers and the Shelly Lauman-directed Birdie, were part of TIFFs Short Cuts lineup earlier this month. They open in theaters Monday with exclusive runs at the Vintage Los Feliz 3.
Feathers centers on an emotionally dejected new enrollee at the Edward R. Mill School for Boys, who must overcome memories of a tragic past and hazing by his peers to tackle larger issues dominating his life. Birdie follows a woman (Maeve Dermody) walking alone in a train station, who finds herself part of a sinister game after returning the smallest of gestures to a young man (Sam Parsonson).
Fox Searchlight is no stranger to the Oscars, having distributed four of the past nine Best Picture winners including this past years The Shape of Water from Guillermo del Toro. Putting narrative and live-action short features on theaters is a new venture for the Fox label, which previously released Wes Andersons 2007 short Hotel Chevalier before select prints of The Darjeeling Limited.
The shorts deals were unveiled by newly elevated chairmen Nancy Utley and Stephen Gilula and
the studios EVP Global Acquisition & Co-Productions Ray Strache.
“We are thrilled to be a part of the short-format narrative world of film, and to foster relationships with these fresh and distinctive voices in filmmaking,” said Utley and Gilula.
[contf] [contfnew] 
Deadline
[contfnewc] [contfnewc]
