Night Ride: Oscar-nominated film tackles transphobic harassment

Night Ride may only be a short film, but it has a twisty plot, opening with its heroine, Ebba, accidentally stealing a tram and driving it through Norway's dark, snowy streets.

She'd only clambered on to keep warm, but decides she's rather enjoying herself, and carries on collecting passengers as she heads home.

One of them is a transgender woman, Ariel, who attracts the attention of two men sitting nearby.

Things escalate pretty quickly and the men become aggressive. Their fellow passengers look on uncomfortably, doing nothing rather than risking getting involved.

Norwegian director Eirik Tveiten says he wrote the 16-minute film to make people consider what they'd do in that situation.

The passengers on the tram clearly conclude that the easiest and possibly safest option is to say nothing.

"I think speaking out if you see harm being done is probably the main message in the story," he tells the BBC.

He adds that having seen someone being targeted, he felt "afraid, unsure of what to do".

"The syndrome called bystander apathy can easily set in," he says, where if one person doesn't take a stand, those around them wait for someone else to act first, often "leaving it too late".

Night Ride has already won several awards, including best narrative short at last year's Tribeca Film Festival in New York.

"The lack of help for a fellow human is quite something to behold, and something I'm sure we've all seen in one form or the other," he said.

"What is good though, is the ending. It's a wickedly delicious twist."

Sigrid Kandal Husjord, in her first starring role, says she was "proud" to play Ebba.

"I was very happy to have a lot of time in front of the camera," she smiles, and it's true that the whole film pivots around her nuanced yet powerful performance.

Husjord, a seasoned TV actress, happens to be a person of shorter stature. This wasn't a requirement of the script, though, which was one of the things she says drew her to the role.

Director Tveiten says she was simply the "best actor at the auditions".

She's patient when asked how she would like to be described, and her casting.

"I feel I have to accept that people want to put a name to describe me - the word in Norwegian is kortvokst [short stature], but I would love that word to disappear.

"What drew me to the movie was definitely the script, but also the fact I understood this wasn't a part for someone short, which was lovely.

"I would be invited for castings where the director or producer had thought about my body figure, and so when I understood it wasn't that for Night Ride, I was even more drawn to it."

The actress says it was "perfect... just to play a human being".

Jennie Kermode, a writer for Eye for Film, praised Husjord's performance, writing: "She is fantastic throughout, giving Ebba a weight of emotional complexity but also handling the film's moments of deadpan comedy with perfect timing."

Tveiten says the actress was also a natural behind the tram's controls.

"It was quite complicated - she was in command and taking taking full responsibility," he recalls. "The guy from the tram company, he just went back and had a rest."

Ola Hoemsnes Sandum plays Ariel, the trans woman who two male passengers are attracted to, before the situation turns ugly.

Sandum has at times experienced "similar things", and was "determined" to make all the screen time in the short film count, while hoping people watching it would "experience all the emotions".

Tveiten, who has written and directed 14 short films, says he finds the characters and actors in many TV series and films "quite stereotypical, and that annoys me a little bit".

Characters like Ebba and Ariel were not "common 10 years ago", he notes, "so we're going in the right direction."

It also has to be said that short films can offer a satisfying alternative to the much longer feature films nominated during awards season.

Screen Daily's executive editor Fionnuala Halligan calls short films an "art form", but says making one is "far easier said than done".

"The perfect short should be brilliant at getting its one message across," she tells the BBC.

"That can be a thought, an emotion or an issue, but when made well, they can be extremely effective - and, arguably, should be, in order to be deemed successful.

"Ideally, when making it, you should be peeling away the extraneous, in order to get to that one thing you want to say."

The Oscar nomination "means a lot" to Tveiten, and he says took a while to sink in.

Halligan adds that short film-makers can use their Oscars exposure to boost financing for future projects.

He won his first Academy Award in 2006 for his short film Six Shooter, and got a further nomination three years later for In Bruges, plus two more for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri in 2018.

Avengers star and director Taika Waititi landed a best short film nomination for Two Cars, One Night in 2005. One of his later feature films, Jojo Rabbit got six Oscar nominations, including a win for best adapted screenplay, in 2020.

Tveiten says he's up there this year alongside "some very well-known names" in the short film category - including Alfonso Cuaron, who has produced Le Pupille.

Cuaron has already stacked up 10 Oscar nominations and four wins for the films Gravity and Roma. Last year's short film award was won by Oscar-nominated actor Riz Ahmed and Aneil Karia, for The Long Goodbye.

As for going over to LA for this year's ceremony, Tveiten, Husjord and Sandum say they are "really excited", calling their nomination "shocking, unreal and amazingly fun".

"We are very happy," they add, knowing the glitzy ceremony will shine a light not just on them, but on the issues their film raises.