Reviewed by Kelly Bader. Viewed at Santa Barbara Film Festival 2014.<\/p>\n
It was my final day of seeing films for the 29th<\/sup> Santa Barbara International Film Festival.\u00a0 Crowds were thick as people were coming out of the woodwork to catch a film the final days of the festival.\u00a0 My original intent was to catch a fictional thriller, but unfortunately it had gotten a lot of \u201cbuzz\u201d and the queue line was unreal.\u00a0 I stood and waited anyway on the off chance, but to no avail.\u00a0 Trying to think quickly the Documentary Shorts was going to be seating within 15 minutes and so I changed my plan and went in.\u00a0 It turned out to be a great showing.<\/p>\n There were five short documentaries that were shown ranging in length from nine minutes to thirty-one minutes.\u00a0 The running theme appeared to be strange or eccentric characters.\u00a0 Each film presented the audience with an individual in a unique situation.\u00a0 It was difficult not to feel invested in each character<\/p>\n Of real interest was a nine-minute short about children who are the product of the same sperm donor, \u201cThe Kids of 5114\u201d.\u00a0 Somehow these children have managed to locate each other and build some sibling relationships.\u00a0 This piece leaves the viewer with so many unanswered questions.\u00a0 However, the director was at the screening and stated that he has continued contact and filming these subjects.\u00a0 I believe this short is the jumping off point to a full-length documentary.<\/p>\n One of the other very short documentaries I viewed was \u201cReal Change\u201d, another nine minute short.\u00a0 The premise was to show in the Washington state area how an organization provides work to homeless and low-income individuals through the sale of a newspaper.\u00a0 What was so interesting about this film were the shots, many done in the rain.\u00a0 Shots taken from inside a van that is now home for a disabled man.\u00a0 The fog and rain viewed through a window intensified the despair that these individuals must experience on a daily basis.\u00a0 The filmmaker did a fantastic job in the short amount of time of playing on our heartstrings.<\/p>\n \u201cRunning Blind\u201d was a much longer film, about a man who is going blind from a rare illness.\u00a0 His goal was to run twelve marathons in the year 2012 to raise funds for his cause.\u00a0 This was a truly inspiring film.\u00a0 The director, Ryan Suffern, was in attendance and explained that the subject of his documentary is a friend of his.\u00a0 Most of the audience Q & A was directed at Ryan\u2019s film, so it obviously struck a chord with filmgoers.<\/p>\n The most eccentric character was a locksmith, Phillip, who was the main focus of \u201cDo Not Duplicate\u201d.\u00a0 With a small shop in New York\u2019s Greenwich Village, we are shown how a blue-collar worker strives to be an artist.\u00a0 Phillip takes old keys and using his welding techniques creates unique panel sculptures.\u00a0 There is no interview of the main character, instead he is allowed to ramble in his explanation of how he got where he is.\u00a0 The filming was so well done, as we are absorbed into the life of Phillip.\u00a0 The audience feels like they are there, in the small shop and in his art studio.\u00a0 The sensation that you are just \u201changing out\u201d with a friend is pervasive throughout the entire film.<\/p>\n I was so fortunate to have just stumbled upon these Documentary Shorts.\u00a0 They were so different and enjoyable from anything I had seen thus far at the festival.\u00a0 It is too bad that the theater was not full, many missed out on some truly interesting film works.\u00a0 I was actually disappointed when they were over, I could have continued to sit in the theater watching more of the same.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Reviewed by Kelly Bader. Viewed at Santa Barbara Film Festival 2014. It was my final day of seeing films for the 29th Santa Barbara International Film Festival.\u00a0 Crowds were thick as people were coming out of the woodwork to catch a film the final days of the festival.\u00a0 My original intent was to catch a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3724,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,216,81],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films","category-santa-barbara-film-festival-2014","category-short-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3724"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30162\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}