Shorts make their brief for an Oscar

Victorian airships, a burning hotel, a grumpy badger, scavenging rag dolls and a showdown of multi-instrumental musicians populate the films nominated for the best animated short Oscar. Beginning today at the Fairfax Cinemas, the five films screen as part of a program that also includes, as a bonus, a film by animation dean Bill Plympton.

A fantastical Jules Verne-like adventure, “The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello” is set in an industrial world ravaged by plague. Filigreed erector-set architecture is set against orangy-brown, polluted skies. The title character, a guilt-ridden navigator, seeks redemption by making a last voyage and hopefully guiding an iron dirigible to safety.

Characters in the film, written by Mark Shirrefs and directed by Anthony Lucas, resemble shadow puppets silhouetted against tinted backdrops. Jasper and crew, accompanied by the secretive Dr. Claude Belgon, encounter an abandoned airship that leads them to a strange and dangerous floating island where there resides a beast that may hold the key to a cure for the disease back home. The film has a sophisticated blend of contemporary and classic techniques.

Not nominated, but nevertheless a delight, Plympton’s uncharacteristically tender “The Fan and the Flower” is the story of a love that cannot be. Paul Giamatti narrates this undulating tale of a lonely ceiling fan mounted in the guest room of an elderly woman who seems to receive no guests. The fan’s days are brightened by the arrival of a plotted plant whom he woos by flirtatiously blinking his lights and showing off all three of his speeds -- slow, medium and fast.

Smitten by the fan’s breezes, the flower responds with beautiful blooms that bring color to the room. Sadly, the two are destined never to touch, and declining health leads the old woman to neglect them. Only an act of self-sacrifice can bring a happy ending to the romance.

John Turturro and Eli Wallach provide the voices for John Canemaker’s powerfully personal “The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation.” Utilizing photographs and paradoxically whimsical drawings, Canemaker animates a constructed dialogue detailing his acrimonious relationship with his father, John Cannizarro Sr., who died in 1995.

Cannizarro was born in Pennsylvania but was raised in Italy, returning to the U.S. when he was 18. A World War II veteran, he got into debt to the Mafia to buy a house, bring his extended family to America and buy a small hotel and bar. A scheme to burn down the hotel for insurance money landed him in Attica prison for five years, but the rift with his son was formed before he went away and was cemented upon his return. Canemaker works out a complex array of emotions -- chiefly anger and shame -- and conveys an amazing amount of narrative in less than 30 minutes.

The furry little star of Sharon Colman’s slyly subversive “Badgered” is trying to get a little shut-eye. If it’s not squawking birds above him interrupting his slumber, it’s the three missiles installed directly beneath his burrow. As the badger proves, there is no problem that cannot be overcome with brute force and ignorance. Rupert Degas gives voice to the various critters in this simply rendered but engaging film.

Cunning carries the day in Shane Acker’s CG-animated “9,” which is being developed as a feature with executive producer Tim Burton. Set in a wasteland of detritus, the film follows a pair of goggle-eyed rag dolls foraging for useful items amid the debris. Number Five teaches Number Nine how to fashion light from a discarded lamp just before they’re set upon by a menacing mechanical beast.

Littered with visual references to animation luminaries such as Pixar and the Brothers Quay, Acker’s textured landscape and intriguing characters transcend what at first appears to simply be another post-apocalyptic adventure tale. Visually distinctive, “9” builds to an unexpectedly spiritual climax of deliverance.

It’s a battle of the bands -- well, a one-on-one version -- in Pixar’s “One Man Band,” written and directed by Andrew Jimenez and Mark Andrews. Bass, boasting a traditional ensemble including a tuba, accordion and big drum, attempts to win the attention of an urchin who has come to the piazza to drop her single coin in the piazza’s fountain for luck. Then along comes Treble, a flashy master of all things string. The two versatile virtuosos duel musically, finally driving one another to a frenzied cacophony for that one coin. The film bears the usual Pixar richness and economical storytelling, wrapping things up in an all-too-brief four minutes.