Movies: Kobe Scores an Oscar nom for "Dear Basketball"

-VARIETY

Retired basketball superstar Kobe Bryant has become an Oscar nominee for the animated short film “Dear Basketball,” along with animator Glen Keane.

“Dear Basketball” will be competing in the category against “Garden Party,” “Lou,” “Negative Space,” and “Revolting Rhymes.”

The six-minute film is based on a letter Bryant wrote in The Players’ Tribune in 2015, in which he announced his retirement from basketball.

Keane, whose animation credits include “The Little Mermaid,” “Aladdin,” and “Beauty and the Beast,” directed and used hand-drawn animation to capture Bryant.

Keane told Variety in a recent interview, “I am a movement nerd. My son Max played basketball and I constantly sketched during his games. There’s a rhythm I already knew.”