Steve Pinder sat on his couch at 5:30 a.m. Feb. 22 with his co-writer and co-director, Julia Aks, next to him, along with their respective partners and friends. They were waiting for the 2026 Oscar nominees to be announced; specifically, this year’s Live Action Short Film nominations.
Among the 207 live action short films that qualified for this year’s Oscars, Pinder and Aks’ film “Jane Austen’s Period Drama” was one of 15 to be shortlisted on Dec. 16, Jane Austen’s 250th birthday.
Announced by actors Danielle Brooks and Lewis Pullman, “Jane Austen’s Period Drama” was the third of five films nominated in the Live Action Short Film category.
“It's one of those things that feels sort of impossible to process,” Pinder said. “It's just unreal. I mean, I think you dream of things like that when you're younger, and they seem so impossible, you know, to have them come to fruition. It's just, like, it truly feels magical.”
While many filmmakers dream of getting one step closer to winning an Oscar, for Pinder the nomination isn’t just another milestone in his career; it’s the culmination of a journey that started years before at Indiana University.
Will Hutcheson, Steve Pinder, Kurt Semmler and Tim Hunt (left to right) perform in “Forever Plaid” with the Actor’s Theatre of Indiana in 2014. Pinder graduated from Indiana University in 2011 to pursue musical theater before he moved to Los Angeles in the fall of 2014 to study film at the University of Southern California.
Pinder came to IU in 2006 undecided. Though he grew up surrounded by family in the medical field, he thought college would be a good chance to explore other career interests.
While he’d placed out of many of IU’s general education requirements, Pinder said the one thing he couldn’t manage to get out of was English.
Though he had never felt drawn to the subject, he found he had a talent for writing during his freshman year in a class with IU professor Paul Gutjahr. After reading some of his essays, a TA in the course suggested he continue the subject.
During his sophomore year, Pinder enrolled in an English class with professor Rae Greiner. He credited her teaching methods for expanding the way he thought about reading and studying literature, a large reason why he chose to declare an English major.
As much as Pinder loved Greiner’s course and ways of teaching, she loved having him in her class.
“He was just amazing, and he was just this eager and happy and curious, creative person,” Greiner said. “He absolutely has been just so incredibly talented, but also kind and humble and sweet. He's just one of my favorite people in the whole world.”
Along with majoring in English, Pinder spent time at IU participating in the Singing Hoosiers and taking voice lessons at the Jacobs School of Music while getting a Bachelor of Science in Music and an Outside Field. Pinder began exploring musical theater when took two semesters of opera and musical theater workshops with Sylvia McNair.
After one audition, he remembers a moment alone with McNair where she told him if he wanted to pursue acting full time, he could.
“That was such a profound life-changing moment for me,” Pinder said. “I was so desperate for that kind of approval and that kind of permission to go pursue my dreams and to go do the things that I really, deeply, deep down wanted to do, but was afraid I wouldn't be good enough.”
Cinematographer Luca Del Puppo, Julia Aks and Steve Pinder (left to right) check the monitor after a take on the set of "Jane Austen’s Period Drama" in August 2023. Aks first had the idea for "Jane Austen's Period Drama" in 2019.
Pinder graduated in 2011 and moved to Chicago to continue pursuing a career in musical theater.
He spent around three years performing in both Chicago and Indianapolis when the rights for eight-time Tony-winning musical “Les Misérables” were made available to regional theaters in 2013. While he liked the musical, he worried the career could get repetitive, with different versions of the same shows constantly in rotation.
“I started seeing, like, my whole career could turn into me doing ‘Les Mis,’ over and over and over again, which just wasn't how I wanted to spend my life,” Pinder said. “So, I started thinking about writing stuff myself. I just thought, well, you know, if I can't book a part that I really want through auditioning, maybe I can write a part.”
When his friend, IU alumna Elisabeth Gawthrop, suggested he look into film programs, Pinder was tentative about the idea. But Gawthrop encouraged him by saying that while having technical skills is nice, what film school really wants from an applicant is someone who has a story to tell.
They’ll teach you how to make a movie. What they want is someone with a voice, Pinder said.
With the help of Greiner, who wrote him the recommendation letter that he’s still convinced got him in, Pinder moved to Los Angeles to study at the University of Southern California in 2014.
While he was at USC, Pinder met Aks and the two formed a close friendship while working with her on various sketch comedy videos.
In 2019 Aks came up with the initial idea for “Jane Austen’s Period Drama.” Pinder was brought in once she finished the first draft and, after looking at the 76-page script, he suggested the idea might work as a feature-length film.
The move to a short film came in 2023 during the WGA Writer’s Strike when Pinder and Aks had finished the script but didn’t want to cross the picket line. Pinder said while it wasn’t their ideal outcome to make a short film, it was an easy decision to go with the prologue.
The prologue specifically focuses on Estrogenia “Essy” Talbot (Aks) who is eagerly awaiting a proposal from her suitor, Mr. Dickley (Ta'imua), when she gets her period. When Mr. Dickley confuses the blood for a life-threatening injury, Essy learns despite his vast education, there are just some things people don’t talk about.
Pinder thought the regency era of Austen’s novels translated especially well to the story and message they were hoping to convey to the audience.
“Everybody has, like, very stiff posture, and they're very polite and they try very hard to sort of talk around uncomfortable subjects,” Pinder said. “And so that dynamic creates a wonderful conflict when suddenly you're dealing with something like menstruation that nobody wants to talk about.”
Producer Elli Legerski’s first step was to figure out a way they could get production started without crossing the picket line. Despite the ongoing strike, she was able to base the production around the guidelines set by the short project agreement, which capped the budget at $50,000.
Legerski said the limits on their budget became especially difficult when trying to emulate the feeling of a period piece. From costume to production design, the team was strategic about what it chose to use its budget on to produce a film that felt truest to the regency era aesthetic of an Austen novel.
“It was like, ‘Okay, we know what we want, we know we don't have the money for it. So, let’s just find people that are in our same spirit and know what we're going for, and we’ll do our best,’” Legerski said. “And it ended up being, you know, amazing what they were able to do.”
Steve Pinder discusses screenwriting on a panel in February 2026 at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in Santa Barbara, California. The Santa Barbara International Film Festival was the first film festival Pinder's co-directed short "Jane Austen's Period Drama" premiered at.
After wrapping up filming and post-production work, “Jane Austen’s Period Drama” officially premiered in February 2024 at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.
Pinder said the positive reaction in Santa Barbara was one of the first moments he realized the short film could be bigger than he thought.
While it was received well by audiences at film festivals, the story did not often rank high in the jury award, which is what makes a short film eligible for direct submission to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
In film festivals, most of the jury awards are narrative awards. Pinder said he began to see a pattern of most of those narrative awards going to the dramas first, but he knew their short film was close to winning if given the right opportunity.
That chance came in April 2025 when “Jane Austen’s Period Drama” played at the Aspen Film Shortsfest, one of the only festivals that has a juried comedy award to qualify someone for the Oscars.
They won, and waited just over seven months before making it onto the Oscars shortlist for live-action shorts.
In the time leading up to the Oscars, the team for “Jane Austen’s Period Drama” has tried to campaign for the film as much as possible within its limited budget.
When a publicist encouraged them to find a celebrity that could endorse or be given an executive producer credit in their film, Legerski said they knew exactly who they wanted to reach out to.
Having won the Best Adapted Screenplay award at the Oscars in 1996 for her own adaptation of Austen’s “Sense and Sensibility,” Legerski and the rest of the team believed actress Emma Thompson was the perfect fit.
While Thompson turned down the producer credit, she suggested one of her own in its place: Executive Menstrual Advisor.
The name may seem very tongue-in-cheek, but Lergerski said it feels perfect for them and is grateful for Thompson’s endorsement.
“It just really seemed like that set off the skyrocket of this campaign process,” Legerski said.
Steve Pinder, Julia Aks, Kate Hudson, and journalist Stacey Ike of Essence Magazine pose together Feb. 10, 2026, at the Academy Nominee Luncheon in Beverly Hills, California. "Jane Austen's Period Drama" was nominated for an Oscar in the Live Action Short Film category Feb. 22, 2026.
As the march toward the Oscars continues, Pinder is appreciative of the continuous support “Jane Austen’s Period Drama” has gotten.
What Pinder thinks draws people to their short film isn’t just the familiarity of a film that’s inspired by Austen and her work, but how the comedic moments underline the powerful message the story aims to convey.
“For this film in particular, you know, I think we've discovered that when you can give people a joyful experience, it's a lighter way to invite people into conversation,” Pinder said.
This mission will only continue after the Oscars. Pinder said the nomination alone has opened so many doors for he and Aks professionally. They aim to produce the feature-length film, and they’ve started having more conversations about where Essy’s story will go next.
“She’s had this awakening about how ignorant people are in the world that she's living in,” Pinder said. “She's just trying to find a way to live in her integrity, you know? She's trying to find a way to be honest in the way she walks through life, even when the whole world around her is telling her to keep lying and to shut up.”
What Pinder really wants to do, though, is continue to make more films for the people back home. Whether it’s a short or a feature length movie, the idea that someone from Indiana will see his work and love it or be inspired to follow a similar path is something that has him hopeful for the future.
He first had this epiphany when applying “Jane Austen’s Period Drama” for the Indy Shorts International Film Festival in 2024, just so the movie could play in Indiana, he said. When writing the cover letter, Pinder said he felt emotional thinking about how the film would be received in his home state.
“Over 10 years ago, I had left the Midwest and moved out to LA to make movies,” Pinder said. “And, I don't know, it's like all I really wanted, deep down, was to make something that people there would love and would be proud of. And, I think, to be where we are now and have these opportunities, I just want to do more of that. I just want to make more things that people in Indiana will love.”
“Jane Austen’s Period Drama” is currently available to watch for free on both YouTube and Kanopy.
