Animated Film With Coin-Op Diorama Is Academy Award Contender

HOLLYWOOD, CA -- Coin-op will have presence at this year's Academy Awards on Feb. 28. "Bear Story," a 2016 Oscar nominee for Best Animated Short Film, features a coin-op diorama. Created by Gabriel Osorio and Pato Escala of Punkrobot, an animation studio in Santiago, Chile, the film tells the story of a lonely old bear who operates a complex street diorama.

According to the filmmakers, the allegorical short was inspired by the exile of Osorio's grandfather following the military coup in Chile during the 1970s. In the film, passersby insert a coin into the device to watch a story of a circus bear who longs to escape and rejoin his family.

A staple of coin-op in the early 20th century, dioramas offering the action of simple mechanical figures have since faded from view, replaced by more sophisticated entertainments.