In Hungarian, Danish, Spanish, French, and Swiss, with English subtitles. Rating unavailable

This year’s Oscar-nominated live-action shorts are an unusually timely bunch, with context in some cases trumping execution. Let’s hope that this two-hour-plus program ends with by far its shortest entry. That’s because Spain’s 15-minute effort is so strong on every level, you really don’t want to see it before the others, which run about a half-hour each.

Beautifully composed and shot, the widescreen “Timecode” centres on a female security guard (Lali Ayguadé) who works the day shift, relieving the guy who works at night (Nicolas Ricchini), whose hidden talents are revealed after a parking-lot mishap makes her review the CCTV footage. If you know that the leads have won multiple awards in another field, it might give the game away. But this certainly helps explain how writer-director Juanjo Giménez Peña has already received 15 other nominations and prizes for this delightful gem.

The next-best item is Kristóf Deák’s “Sing”, which follows a young Hungarian girl’s adventures when transferred to a new school. After joining the renowned choir there, she’s shocked to find that the seemingly popular teacher is manipulating the students in frighteningly subtle ways. The movie has sharp things to say about the softer side of fascism, and its big finish is a bracing rebuttal to trends that are awfully familiar to central Europeans. And us.

Denmark’s “Silent Nights” and France’s “Ennemis Intérieurs” are slightly more ham-handed but still worthwhile, especially for the engaging actors. In the former, a Ghanaian refugee finds sanctuary with a gentle Copenhagen shelter volunteer, and the latter is a game of wits between an Algerian-born Frenchman and the government worker charged with vetting his belated request for citizenship.

The weakest film is also the program’s surest draw. Certainly, people will want to see Jane Birkin as a Swiss woman who waves to a passing bullet train everyday in “La Femme et le TGV”. But director Timo von Gunten has studied Amélie-maker Jean-Pierre Jeunet too well, inserting an array of cutesy-poo tricks into his colour-saturated fable, making Birkin’s character look more foolish than wise. As an antidote, do try to watch “Timecode” again.