Toronto

Toronto filmmakers on Oscars shortlist for short documentary

Toronto filmmaker and former CBC employee Ann Shin is a finalist for the 2015 Academy Awards documentary short subject category for her film, My Enemy, My Brother. It is a story about two soldiers on opposite sides of war that become 'brothers.'

Former CBC producer is one of 10 finalists for a 2015 Oscar nomination.

Toronto filmmaker and former CBC producer Ann Shin is among the finalists being considered for the 2015 Oscars nominations for the category of Documentary Short Subject. (Twitter/Ann Shin)

Two Toronto filmmakers and their documentaries could soon be nominated for an Oscar.

Ann Shin and her film My Enemy, My Brother were among the 10 contenders when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released its shortlist Monday for the 2015 Oscar nominations.

They're mentioned in the short documentary category.

The story of Haftlang and Aboud was first featured on CBC Radio's Ideas. Greg Kelly, executive producer of the show, suggested the idea of a film documentary to Ann Shin. 

The film is about two former soldiers, Zahed Haftlang and Najah Aboud, who fought against each other during the Iran-Iraq war and reunited coincidentally 20 years later in Canada.
Iraqi Najah Aboud (left) and Iranian Zahed Haftlang hold hands up in the air.
Najah Aboud (left) and Zahed Haftlang, the subjects of Ann Shin's film "My Enemy, My Brother." (Greg Kelly/CBC)

A crowdfunding campaign was launched earlier this year to help fund the next part of the project — searching for Aboud's missing family and reuniting Haftlang with his. 

Of the 10 documentary short subject finalists for the 88th Academy Awards, five will be nominated for the awards. The nominations will be announced in January. 

My Enemy, My Brother won the Sepanta Award for Best Documentary Short at the 8th Annual Iranian Film Festival in September. It is also eligible for TIFF's 15th Annual Canada's Top 10 Film Festival.

Shin's film isn't the only Canadian documentary on the list. Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah by Toronto film journalist Adam Benzine has also been shortlisted in the same category and so has A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness by Pakistani-Canadian filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy.