By the end of the weekend, another documentary short will have punched its ticket to the Oscar race.
The 22nd HollyShorts, the prestigious film festival in Los Angeles, will announce jury award winners Sunday in multiple categories, with four of them qualifying for the Academy Awards: Best Short Film Grand Prize, Best Short Animation, Best Short Live Action, and Best Documentary Short.
The nonfiction contenders constitute “one of its strongest documentary programs to date,” the festival notes, exploring a wide range of themes. Two of them center on stories of the formerly incarcerated: I Got My Brother, directed by Victor K. Gabriel, examines siblings Jarrett Harper and Baylon Harper, who were dealt a very tough hand of cards as infants. They were shuffled around L.A.’s foster care system, where they faced Dickensian conditions.
Jarrett Harper (right) and Baylon Harper in ‘I Got My Brother.’
L.A. Times/Breakwater Studios/Schultz Family Foundation
Jarrett, the elder brother, was eventually taken in by a man who later abused him, a victimizer who then set his sights on Baylon. Fearing what would happen to his younger brother, Jarrett killed the man and was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole. Eventually, Gov. Jerry Brown of California commuted his sentence. I Got My Brother offers a surprisingly joyous portrait of the Harpers as their bond remains unshakeable after Jarrett’s release.
Freddie Nole
Sweet World Films
The Second Life of Freddie Nole, directed by Dana Nachman, follows the titular Nole, who spent an astonishing 50 years in prison. When he ultimately got out, Nole was essentially dumped on the street by the prison system, without any resources. Determined not to let this happen to others in his circumstances, Nole founded Meeting at the Door, a nonprofit that offers free transportation, a restaurant meal, new clothes, a prepaid phone, and valuable advice to newly freed prisoners. (After watching the film, I immediately donated to Meeting at the Door).
HollyShorts contender The Time My Grandmother Was Held Hostage by Bank Robbers, directed by Rosella Tursi, tells the extraordinary story of the filmmaker’s nonna (Italian for grandma), who was minding her own business one day in her home in Montreal in 1983 when two men fleeing after a bank holdup burst into her place and held her captive.
Rosa Tursi in ‘The Time My Grandmother Was Held Hostage by Bank Robbers.’
Aspen Film
The documentary interweaves the memories of family members – some alive at the time of the news making drama and others who heard it second hand as they grew up. Remarkably, after more than a 40-year interval, Tursi was able to track down one of the hostage takers to get his recollections of that fateful day.
The film, which premiered at DOC NYC last November, is full of humor and wonderful details – like a historical disagreement over whether the bank robbers availed themselves of a beer from nonna Rosa’s refrigerator, or not a frosty brew but a Mountain Dew. What isn’t in dispute is that they graciously offered to reimburse Rosa for the beverage, perhaps out of their newly acquired wad of cash.
Black Panther Party “cubs” in ‘When The Revolution Doesn’t Come.’
HollyShorts
When The Revolution Doesn’t Come, directed by Aurora Brachman, takes a fascinating look at “Black Panther Party cubs” – that is to say, children of parents integral to the movement. Among them is the son of Fred Hampton, a senior leader of the Black Panther Party who was assassinated by the FBI in 1969, at the age of 21. Another figure in the film: Erika Brown-Abram, daughter of Elaine Brown, who was chairwoman of the Black Panther Party.
The film examines how these children of Black Panther Party leaders – now adults – maintain the ideals and purpose of the movement when, as the title suggests, the revolution didn’t come as their parents had hoped. The documentary premiered in June at Tribeca Festival.
Markus Füchtner with nutcracker in ‘The Chimney Sweeper.’
RiverRun International Film Festival
The Chimney Sweeper, meanwhile, directed by Jack Raese, centers on Markus Füchtner, a woodcarver and descendant of William Füchtner, “known as the father of the nutcracker,” according to the Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum. The 19th century Füchtner “made the first commercial production of nutcrackers” on a lathe, crafting “standing wooden nutcrackers in the form of soldiers and kings.”
Why wouldn’t the film be titled The Nutcracker (or perhaps the German Nussknacker)? Well, it turns out Markus faced a bit of a crisis deciding whether to follow his great-great-great-grandfather into the nutcracker business, or head down a chimney with a brush.
Those are just a few of the short docs in the HollyShorts lineup. It has also screened The Baddest Speech Writer of All, directed by two-time Oscar winner Ben Proudfoot, and The Revolution Against Death from two-time Oscar nominee Joshua Oppenheimer, “a poetic exploration on mortality, capitalism, and love.”
Among eye-catching sport documentaries, HollyShorts notes, is ZINA, produced by Serena Williams, “shining a light on tennis pioneer Zina Garrison, revealing the triumphs and personal struggles behind one of the sport’s most influential yet overlooked champions.” Set Pace introduces Britain’s first Black female motorsport official as she launches her own race team. Miles of Life chronicles a former Ugandan runner “who channels personal disappointment into transforming his community,” while The Angry Bird, follows “female stock car racer Georgie´s fight to reclaim her place on the track following a devastating crash.”
The 22nd edition of HollyShorts opened August 13 and concludes on Sunday. The festival takes place at the TCL Chinese Theatres and venues throughout Ovation Hollywood.
