In the delightfully mischievous short film Le Pupille, which earned Italian writer-director Alice Rohrwacher her first Oscar nomination, a rebellion is brewing within the confines of a Catholic girls’ school in Italy on a chilly Christmas Eve in the midst of World War II.

Young Serafina (Melissa Falasconi) attracts the ire of Sister Fioralba (Alba Rohrwacher, the director’s sister), the stern mother superior who rules her boarding school with an iron fist and steely gaze. As the schoolgirls prepare for the evening’s festivities — stoically re-creating the Nativity — they listen to a radio report that offers somber news from the battlefield.