In this American Film Institute-subsidized short subject, Fionnula Flanagan plays a sharp-tongued but compassionate nun, while Peter Lempert is cast as a sullen, emotionally disturbed boy. The title refers to the "thawing" process that occurs when the nun attempts to break through Lempert's wall of silence. Winner of the Oscar for "Best Short Film, Live Action". Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.
Director: Peter Werner
Writers: Peter Werner, Joyce Carol Oates
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“Sister Irene” (Fionnula Flanagan) is a nun throughly immersed in the Shakespeare that she teaches to her students, but she’s not perhaps the most approachable of women. One afternoon she is introduced to the quite thought-provoking “Allan” (Peter Lampert) whose eccentric behavio…
