klingelhoeferme@lopers.unk.edu
The World Theatre is a popular part of Kearney’s history. The World will present three sets of 2022 Oscar nominated short films in March.
The theater is an impactful part of the Kearney community.
“It’s been around since 1927,” said Taylor Moore, house manager of the World Theatre. “Everybody who grew up here, who lives here, has a memory about The World. One of the cooler parts of this job is people come in and they say, ‘Oh, my parents met here working in the ‘40s.’ We only charge $5 for movies so that a single parent can bring their family here without breaking the bank.”
As a non-profit corporation, most of the movies are funded through community sponsors for film licensing fees, while in exchange providing the sponsor with monthly promotion.
With the impending 2022 Oscar event, The World Theatre has dedicated two weekend events that will honor the big show.
Live Action Short Films will be shown at 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 11, the Animated Short will be at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 12 and the Documentary Short Films will show at 2 p.m. on Sunday, March 13. The World Theatre will host an Oscars party Sunday, March 27 with the time still to be determined. Though Saturday’s showings are animated films, it must be noted that they are not intended for children.
“Usually you don’t see collections of short films outside of going to a film festival,” said Jacob Rosdail, video production associate professor at UNK. “In that scenario, the quality of the shorts varies wildly. A presentation like this gives everyone the opportunity to see what some people have judged to be the best of the best any given year.”
One of the animated short films featured will be “Robin Robin” created by Dan Ojari and Mikey Please.
The short film begins with an egg falling out of its nest, downstream and into a forest only to be found by a family of mice. As the bird grows up, her differences with her mice family become more obvious, so she sets forth on a journey to steal a shiny star to prove she really can be a good mouse.
The creativity and innovation of short films are important to those invested.
UNK senior theater major Bryce Emde has spent his entire semester committed to making short films for his independent study, so people within the theater program understand that there is more out there than stage performance.
“My relationship to short films is very strong,” Emde said. “As a writer I find myself at my best when writing stories on a smaller scale. Sometimes there isn’t even a resolution to the story. It creates a box that we have to work in, and it helps us to create ideas and films that we wouldn’t have done normally. My goal is to produce short films.”
