Congratulations to Florida Film Festival veterans Arlene Donnelly Nelson and husband David Nelson as well as Talmage Cooley, for making the Motion Picture Academy's short list in the category of Documentary Short Subject for this year's 78th Academy Awards on March 5. Eight titles were recently announced from which three to five will be nominated for the Oscar.

Talmage's strikingly gritty film, DIMMER, about a gang of tough, blind teenagers on the mean streets of Buffalo, had its East Coast Premiere and second US showing at the 2005 Florida Film Festival. His previous fictional work, POL POT'S BIRTHDAY, was a hit in the 2004 Festival.

Arlene and David's beautiful and touching POSITIVELY NAKED had its Southeast Premiere at last year's FFF. The film focuses on 85 HIV-positive individuals as they bare their souls for the filmmakers and their bodies for a magazine cover that famed photographer Spencer Tunick is shooting. Tunick's quest to photograph people naked in every state in the nation was captured in the Nelson's earlier feature-length work, NAKED STATES, winner of the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature at FFF 2000.

We wish all three filmmakers the best of luck, and congratulations again for creating such extraordinary non-fiction work in small packages.

- Matthew Curtis