"In Tahrir Square: 18 Days of Egypt's Unfinished Revolution," a documentary short about the revolution in Egypt, is one of eight short docs that have made the Academy's shortlist in the Documentary Short category, the Academy announced on Thursday.
Also on the list of typically serious, issue-oriented doc shorts are films about the civil rights movement, the conflict in Iraq and the controversial proposed pipeline from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf Coast of Texas.
The directors of several of the shorts have previously been nominated for Oscars. Leslie Iwerks ("Pipe Dreams") was nominated for the short "Recycled Life" in 2006, while Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill ("In Tahrir Square") were nominated in the same category for 2009's "China's Unnatural Disaster."