2020 Oscar-Nominated Documentary Short Films

 

This year, I am reviewing all 15 films nominated across Oscar's three short subject categories. Versions of these blurbs have also been published at Cine-File.

OSCAR-NOMINATED DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILMS

Like its Live Action counterpart, Oscar’s 2020 Documentary Shorts slate is dominated by weighty subjects, from systemic racism in the US to major geopolitical crises abroad. On the more hopeful side of things is Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers’ A Concerto is a Conversation (13 min), which comes from the New York Times’ Op-Docs series. Following from the titular metaphor, the film is structured as a dialogue between Bowers, a successful black composer and musician, and his nonagenarian grandfather Horace. Through their intergenerational exchange, we learn about Horace’s migration from Jim Crow Florida to Los Angeles, where he still runs a neighborhood cleaners. His journey, scarred by institutional racism, is juxtaposed with the early-career success of his grandson, whose comparatively smooth vocational path highlights the degree to which racial equality has progressed over the generations. It’s a polished and poignant piece, inspiring without being mawkish. 

Another dialogue across generations takes place in Anthony Giacchino’s Colette (24 min). It centers on Colette Marin-Catherine, a former member of the French Resistance who is persuaded by a young historian, Lucie Fouble, to visit the German concentration camp where Colette’s brother was killed during the war. Their emotional, mutual excavation of memory reinforces the importance of the historical credo to “never forget.” Sophia Nahli Allison’s A Love Song For Latasha (19 min) is also about remembering, in this case the life of Latasha Harlins, a 15-year-old black girl who was shot and killed by the owner of a convenience store in 1991 South Central LA. Her murder would partly catalyze the riots that erupted the following year, but Allison eschews footage of violence; instead, employing sensuous montage, animation, and simulated VHS static - as well as testimony from Latasha’s cousin Shinese and friend Tybie - she constructs an impressionistic archival tapestry that restores beauty and visibility to a life cut tragically short.

The final two nominees address specific calamities unfolding in the present with on-the-ground immediacy. In Skye Fitzgerald’s Hunger Ward (40 min), we follow a doctor and a nurse in war-torn Yemen who tend to fatally malnourished children at a pair of pediatric clinics. It’s a grueling watch, but one that’s productively angry in its exhaustion rather than resigned, fueled by the tenacity of the healthcare workers who refuse to accept as a norm the human rights abuses embattling their nation. Righteous outrage also drives Anders Hammer’s Do Not Split (35 min), an immersive document of, and primer on, Hong Kong’s 2019-20 pro-democracy protests. Hammer puts us on the streets right alongside the activists, dodging rubber bullets and tear gas as the Chinese government escalates its siege against dissidents. The film has a powerful urgency, and a non-ending that underscores how still sadly necessary our global fight against authoritarianism remains.