Lachlan Pendragon’s short film nominated for Oscar

A Brisbane student is on the cusp of winning an Oscar for a short film he made in his Queensland family home during Covid lockdowns.

A Brisbane student is on the cusp of winning an Oscar for a short film he made in his Queensland family home during Covid lockdowns.

Lachlan Pendragon, 26, is in Los Angeles to walk the coveted red carpet on Monday after receiving a nod for best animated short film for his stop-motion project “An Ostrich Told Me The World is Fake and I Think I Believe It”.

Pendragon spent three years creating the 10-minute film as part of his PhD studies at Griffith Film School, taking over his mother’s living room during Covid lockdown with the puppet characters and sets he constructed himself.

Lachlan Pendragon. Picture: Steve Pohlner

“I watched the (nominations) presentation late at night, watching on a laptop. And it’s this bizarre thing where you hear your film’s name being read out – partly because it’s a very long and weird title – but it doesn’t quite sink in,” Pendragon said.

“This goes to show what you can do with not a lot.”

If successful in winning an Academy Award Pendragon will join a small selection of under 60 Australians, including Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger and Nicole Kidman, to have received the honour

The set of Lachlan Pendragon's film "An Ostrich Told Me The World is Fake and I Think I Believe It"

Pendragon developed a passion for filmmaking in high school and it was in his second year of an animation degree at Griffith film school that he studied stop motion and felt it “connected in a way the other types of filmmaking didn’t quite”.

After graduating with honours, Pendragon struggled to find work in the industry in Brisbane and was at a crossroads, deciding whether to change course to computer animation or continue his stop motion dream.

The set of Lachlan Pendragon's film "An Ostrich Told Me The World is Fake and I Think I Believe It"

Back studying his PhD he was given a long-term research project and set about creating his film, An Ostrich Told Me The World is Fake and I Think I Believe It, which tells the story of a young telemarketer who uncovers the mysteries of his stop motion universe with the help of a peculiar talking ostrich.

“The film has to be from a research perspective and that meant I had to justify everything through that lens, so I don’t think I would’ve made the film I ended up making if I hadn’t tackled it from a research point of view,” he said.

A still from Lachlan Pendragon's film "An Ostrich Told Me The World is Fake and I Think I Believe It"

“I wanted to figure out more about what I found appealing about (stop motion) … and for me it’s a lot to do with the handmade qualities – the tactile material, the imperfections.

“That led me down the path of extremely meta narratives where the audience is constantly reminded that they are watching something handmade.”

Pendragon won a student academy award for the film last year as well as a best short win at the Melbourne International Film Festival, which made him eligible for a subsequent Oscar nod.

A still from Lachlan Pendragon's film "An Ostrich Told Me The World is Fake and I Think I Believe It"

Now, after previously struggling to get work, the offers are flooding in for the filmmaker, who is in Los Angeles to attend the Academy Awards alongside his mother Melinda, who has since regained control of her living room.

“It’s kind of a look behind the curtain,” he said.

“A dream for me is to get into feature animations, so now I’m looking at those bigger projects.”

Australian filmmaker Adam Elliot, a former Oscar winner for the same category in 2004, reached out to Pendragon in the wake of the nomination to offer his mentorship and advice.

Originally published as Lachlan Pendragon’s short film nominated for Oscar