This past weekend I was at the New Orleans Film Festival, serving as a juror for the event’s impressive documentary shorts program. Out of the 22 contenders, Oscar nominee Sari Gilman (King’s Point), Picture Motion’s Wendy Cohen and I awarded our prize to J. Christian Jensen’s White Earth, honoring the film “for its pure, harsh look at a devastating economic reality from the unlikely perspective of people on the sidelines who are most affected, as well as for its stunning, metaphoric cinematography and restrained, quiet editing,” One day later, Jensen had another, perhaps bigger reason to celebrate: his film was named to the 2014 doc shorts Oscar shortlist.
White Earth, which also won the Silver Medal in the documentary category at this year’s Student Academy Awards is the Stanford University alum’s MFA thesis film. It focuses on the oil boom of North Dakota, partially from the perspective of children, and it will be a fitting nominee alongside documentary feature hopeful The Overnighters (and Rich Hill if we could be so lucky). It’s joined by the seven films listed ahead of it alphabetically below. I’ve included trailers or full versions of the films and any significant info I could find about each of the shorts. The group is notable for having fewer Oscar vets than usual (only one is by a former Oscar nominee) as well as for being an especially bleak bunch — much disease and death and tragedies involving children.
Three to five of these will be named Oscar nominees on January 15th and the winner announced at the Academy Awards ceremony on February 22nd.
Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1
Perry Films/HBO
41 min. (according to HBO, though it must have been a wee bit shorter for qualification)
Directed by Ellen Goosenberg Kent (Alive Day Memories: Home From Iraq)
Edited by Geof Bartz (Oscar noms Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall, Poster Girl and Lenny Bruce: Swear to Tell the Truth and winners Big Mama and King Gimp) and Gladys Murphy (Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall)
Cinematography by Tony Hardmon (Detropia)
Subject: Counselors at the Veterans’ Crisis Line, which helps military vets deal with any of life’s troubles after returning home from service.
Official HBO site
Watch in full on HBO GO
Trailer:
http://youtu.be/3DF0sU0uQlU
Joanna
Wajda Studio
45 min. (according to IMDb, though it must have been shorter for qualification)
Directed, co-edited and co-written by Aneta Kopacz
Cinematography by Lukasz Zal (Ida, Poland’s current submission for the Oscar in the foreign film category)
Subject: A woman blogging her final days with her husband and 5-year-old son after she is diagnosed with cancer.
Winner of the Silver Eye Award for Best Mid-Length Documentary at the 2013 Jihlava International Documentary Festival
Also on the shortlist for the 2015 Cinema Eye Honors award for Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Short Filmmaking
Trailer:
http://youtu.be/PcY3YAOOOQo
Kehinde Wiley: An Economy of Grace
Show of Force
52 min. (as per PBS’s running time; IMDb lists it at 38 min.)
Directed and produced by Jeff Dupre (producer and co-director of Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present)
Cinematography by Wolfgang Held (Oscar nominee Children Underground and Particle Fever), Robert Hanna (Half the Sky) and William Pena
Subject: Famous portrait artist Kehinde Wiley
Winner of the Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary Short at the 2014 SXSW Film Festival
Watch in full via PBS:
Video: Kehinde Wiley: An Economy of Grace | Watch PBS Arts Online | PBS Video
The Lion’s Mouth Opens
Tree Tree Tree
15 min. (extended cut of 28 min. will debut on HBO next year)
Directed by Lucy Walker (Oscar nominee in 2011 for the feature Waste Land and in 2012 for the short The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom)
Produced by Walker, Marianna Palka and Julian Cautherley (Walker’s The Crash Reel)
Cinematography by Nick Higgins (Walker’s The Crash Reel and Countdown to Zero)
Featuring Palka, Bryce Dallas Howard, Josh Ritter
Subject: Palka, a young actress confronting her risk of having inherited Huntington’s Disease, which is both fatal and incurable.
Winner of the Special Jury Award at the 2014 Aspen Shortsfest
Winner of the Director’s Choice award for Best Short Doc at the 2014 Rincón International Film Festival
Also on the shortlist for the 2015 Cinema Eye Honors award for Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Short Filmmaking
Official Website
Watch an interview and discussion of the film at BYOD:
http://youtu.be/bXrQsipidhY
One Child
New York University
40 min.
Directed, produced, edited and shot by Zijian Mu
Subject: Three families in China coping with the loss of their mandated one child in the devastating 2008 Sichuan earthquake.
Winner of the Bronze Medal for Documentary at the 2014 Student Academy Awards
Official Website
Trailer:
http://youtu.be/R7B4sPJRyVY
Our Curse
Warsaw Film School
28 min.
Directed and written by Tomasz Sliwinski
Subject: Sliwinski’s newborn child, who has the incurable disease known as Ondine’s curse (aka congenital central hypoventilation syndrome or CCHS).
Winner of the Jury Award for Best Documentary at the 2014 Aspen Shortsfest
Winner of the Student Doc Award at the 2014 Sheffield Doc/Fest
Official Website
Trailer:
The Reaper (La Parka)
Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica
29 min.
Directed by Gabriel Serra
Subject: A man who works in a slaughterhouse and his relationship to the dead.
Winner of a Special Mention of the Jury at DocumentaMadrid 2014
Trailer:
http://youtu.be/IEx55rAEe88
White Earth
Weary Traveler/Stanford University
Directed, produced, written, edited and shot by J. Christian Jensen
Subject: North Dakota’s oil boom seen through the perspective of kids and one spouse.
Winner of the Silver Medal for Documentary at the 2014 Student Academy Awards
Winner of the Jury Award for Best Documentary Short at the 2014 New Orleans Film Festival
Winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary Short at the 2014 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival
Winner of the Jury Award for Best Cinematography at the 2014 Slamdance Film Festival
Winner of the Jury Award for Best in Show: Best Cinematography at the 2014 Fargo Film Festival
Honorable Mention for Best Student Film at the 2014 Fargo Film Festival
Official Website
Trailer:
