The Oscar Short Documentary Program at the 2009 Santa Barbara International Film Festival

Reviewed by: Collier Grimm. Viewed at the 2009 Santa Barbara International Film Festival. 

Every year the Academy narrows down a list of short documentaries, and selects only a few to be voted on in the Best Short Documentary category. I was lucky enough to see three of the nominees during the Oscar Short Documentary Program at the 2009 Santa Barbara International Film Festival. The three films were all about thirty minutes long, but greatly varied in content. Each film had an emotional impact on me, and forced me to reassess pre-determined notions I had about each topic. I try to come into every film as a blank slate. Of course all of us have ideals and ideas that we walk around with on our shoulders no matter how hard we try to bury them. These films were an exceptional part of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival because they asked audiences to re-consider, re-visit, and re-define three topics we have come to know so well in this day and age.

Downstream (Leslie Ewers, 2009): USA, focuses on the oil sands in Alberta, Canada.  Here native peoples are living downstream form one of the most polluting and toxic oil operations in the world. Shockingly most of the people in the theater, including me, had no idea this was going on under our oil-radar. The oilmen in Alberta literally dig up dirt that is saturated with oil, and there is so much of this oil that the reserves could help solve America’s energy need for the next century. However, the sands are leaking into local water sources, killing off vegetation, animal life, and lots of people. The film follows a doctor who has been treating a rapidly growing group of patients all experiencing strange symptoms. The amount of people dying for the size of the town is alarming. There are 28 dead so far; one of them under thirty and the sickness keeps spreading to younger and younger people.

Tongzhi In Love (Ruby Yang, 2008): China/USA, Follows a group of gay students in Beijing as they struggle to find a sense of identity while at the same time hiding the fact that they are gay (tongzhi) from their parents. Discovering themselves becomes very hard because half the time they are fighting to suppress it. In the city there is a large gay population, the young men can act like themselves and look for love. However, their parents represent the unyielding Chinese traditions by which they were raised. The “one child per-family” restrictions that were put upon their parents also complicates things. The boys are constantly in agony because they fear their parents, having only been allowed to have one child, will feel as if they have failed in life and try to kill themselves.

The Witness From The Balcony of Room 306 (Adam Pertofsky, 2008): USA, revisits the events that lead up to the death of Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. A little known fact about that terrible day in 1968, is that someone was standing right next to King when he was shot down in cold blood.  Director Adam Pertofsky goes back to Memphis to find out more about that man, Reverend Samuel ‘Billy’ Kyles. Kyles tells quirky stories about his friend King, takes a look back at the day of his death, and concludes why God put him there as a witness. Maxine Smith and Dr. Benjamin Hooks are among the other talking heads that comment on the last few hours of King’s life.

I highly recommend viewing all three of these interesting short documentaries, especially the last one. Although they are not particularly technically innovative, the un-familiar aspect to each of these familiar stories will make you think.