Hoax and perfectionism: Bronzit's "Three Sisters" was nominated for an Oscar
Russian director Konstantin Bronzit's cartoon "Three Sisters" was among the Oscar nominees in the Best Animated Short Film category. This nomination was the third in his career for the St. Petersburg animator. Earlier, his works "Toilet Story — a Love Story" (2009) and "We Can't Live without Space" (2016) claimed the Academy award. However, the path of the "Three Sisters" to recognition turned out to be unusual: the director deliberately hid his name when sending the film to festivals in order to check whether the work was able to reach the audience solely due to artistic qualities. All the details are in the Izvestia article.
The plot of Konstantin Bronzit's cartoon "Three Sisters"
According to the director, the idea of "Three Sisters" was born on board an airplane in 2016. Returning from the award ceremony, where his cartoon "We can't Live without Space" was presented, Bronzit sat next to fellow animator Dmitry Vysotsky. It was Vysotsky who proposed the plot outline: three sisters living a quiet and peaceful life on a secluded island, and a man suddenly appeared who brings chaos into their lives.
A frame from the cartoon "Three Sisters"
The story centers on three middle—aged sisters living together on a small island with a lighthouse. Their measured existence, which includes trips to the temple and the fight against seagulls, violates the need to rent out one of the sections of the house.
The tenant becomes a cheerful sailor with a pipe and a beard, whose appearance instantly turns the lives of the heroines upside down. Women fall in love, start competing for his attention, and transform. As the director himself notes, this is a story about temptation, passions, competition, but above all about loneliness and the fact that "a man needs a man."
A frame from the cartoon "Three Sisters"
Interestingly, after completing six years of work on the film, it turned out that there is a legend in Montenegro with a similar plot, however, with a much more tragic ending. In the Bronzit version, the conflict is resolved more mildly.
Name hoaxes and a two-year experiment
The fate of the cartoon on the festival stage was not easy, and this was part of the director's plan. Konstantin Bronzit decided to conduct a bold professional experiment: to send the "Three Sisters" to festivals under an assumed name. He chose the pseudonym Timur Kognov (based on the name of Timur Konovitsky's real relative), came up with a biography and filmography, and indicated Cyprus as the country of production.
The goal was to free the audience and the jury from the "burden of the name," which, according to the director's observations, inevitably affects perception. Bronzit calls for judging the film, not the author.
Directed by Konstantin Bronzit
The experiment confirmed the master's fears. For almost two years, the painting traveled through the reviews, but the selectors often did not even inspect it to the end. Of the hundreds of festivals to which the application was submitted, "Three Sisters" were included in the competition program of only ten.
However, where the film was noticed, it was appreciated: at about half of these festivals, the work received awards. Among them is the prize for the best animated short film at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in 2025.
From shortlist to nomination
The situation changed after the cartoon reached the American Film Academy. The film was submitted for the Oscar under the director's real name. On December 16, 2025, "Three Sisters" was shortlisted for the award, becoming one of 15 works selected in the Best Animated Short Film category. And on January 22, 2026, it was announced that Konstantin Bronzit's film was officially nominated for an Oscar.
The director admitted that he had followed the announcement of the nominees online, and the emotions were so strong that he lost his voice.
The list of nominees also includes four other works.:
- The Butterfly by Florence Miel;
- "Evergreen" by Nathan Engelhardt and Jeremy Spears;
- "The Girl Who Cried with Pearls" by Maciek Shcherbowski and Chris Lavis;
- John Kelly's Retirement Plan.
The chances of winning and skill as a trump card
Talking about the prospects of his work, Konstantin Bronzit, in an interview with Avtoradio, called his main competitor the French film Butterfly, a documentary cartoon about a Moroccan swimmer with Jewish roots who is making his way to the Olympics. However, "Three Sisters", according to the director, has its strengths.
A shot from the animated film "Butterfly"
"Of these 15 films, our film was the funniest. He was the only picture made in the comedy genre. All the other films were so heavy, they talked about some problems more or less. I think that in a sense, academics, watching all these films, were a little overloaded and tired of it. And I can understand that funny, funny movies somehow relaxed them," said Bronzit.
In addition, the director emphasized that the film is built on pure craftsmanship.
"According to the direction, everything goes according to a 10-point system. The academy still values excellence, and that's great," he added.
Mikhail Trofimenkov, a film critic, film critic, author of monographs and documentary books about cinema, called Konstantin Bronzit "an absolute genius" in a conversation with Izvestia. According to Trofimenkov, every few years the director makes masterpieces that are small in format, but huge in their meanings.
"Another masterpiece is "Three Sisters". At the same time, a very sad and very funny tale about a desert island where three sisters live who have fallen in love with a passing captain. Unfortunately, I have not watched the work of Konstantin's competitors, but I would give him an Oscar!"— shared his opinion Trofimenkov.
Creative path and views on animation
For 62-year-old Konstantin Bronzit, this nomination was the third in his career. He has previously claimed an Oscar twice: in 2009 for the film "Bathroom Story — a Love Story" and in 2016 for "We can't Live without Space." His work "At the Edge of the Earth" was nominated for the French Cesar Award.
A frame from the cartoon "Bathroom story — a love story"
"Konstantin Bronzit is primarily an artist, and his style is like that of an artist. Secondly, he has a common intonation — the intonation of love for people. Maybe a little cold, but love: sadness that people can't do it, but joy that some small miracles happen," said Trofimenkov.
Bronzit is also the artistic director of the St. Petersburg studio "Melnitsa". He directed the feature-length projects "Alyosha Popovich and Tugarin the Snake", "Three Heroes and the Heir to the Throne", and also worked on the animated series "Luntik and his Friends" and "Tsarevna".
Bronzit is known for his exactingness to detail and is convinced that style should be dictated by the plot, not the other way around. He is critical of the trend towards animated documentaries with voiceover text, excessive musicality and blinkered choice of topics.
The 98th Academy Awards ceremony will take place on March 15, 2026 at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles. "Three Sisters" can not only bring the first statuette to Bronzit, but also once again draw the attention of the world film community to the Russian animation school, whose traditions the director continues in his work.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
