This is your annual chance to predict the winners (and have the edge in your Oscar pool)! A perennial hit with audiences around the country and the world, don’t miss this year’s selection of shorts. The Academy Awards take place Sunday, March 27.
Documentary Program Guide:
“Themes of suicide, homelessness and addiction color three of the five documentaries. ‘Audible‘ tells the story of students at Frederick’s Maryland School for the Deaf, who are coping with the suicide of a former classmate. ‘Lead Me Home‘ looks at the growing number of unhoused people in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle. ‘Three Songs for Benazir‘ follows a young man living in a displaced person’s camp in Afghanistan, and his fall into addiction after he takes on a job harvesting poppies for opium and heroin, to support his wife — the titular Benazir.
‘Audible,’ which also focuses on overcoming adversity through football, is perhaps the least bleak of those three films. But ‘The Queen of Basketball‘ is the real sports charmer: The film is a portrait of Lusia ‘Lucy’ Harris, a pioneer in women’s basketball, who, as the star player at Mississippi’s Delta State University in the pre-Title IX 1970s, led the team to three national championships, and who played in the 1976 Olympics — the first appearance by a women’s basketball team.
Made by Jay Rosenblatt, an experimental filmmaker known for ‘collage documentaries’ that incorporate archival footage, ‘When We Were Bullies‘ is a deeply personal essay about the director’s childhood, centering on an instance of bullying in which Rosenblatt participated when he was in fifth grade. It’s an exhumation of the long-buried past, told with a mix of found footage, animation, first-person voice-over and traditional interviews.” -The Washington Post
Rated R. The documentary shorts program contains strong language and mature thematic elements, including bullying, suicide and drug addiction.
DOCUMENTARY SHORTS PROGRAM (Running Time: 160 minutes)
Audible – Matt Ogens and Geoff McLean, USA, 39 min.
When We Were Bullies – Jay Rosenblatt, USA/Germany, 36 min.
Three Songs for Benazir – Elizabeth Mirzaei and Gulistan Mirzaei, Afghanistan, 22 min.
Lead Me Home – Pedro Kos and Jon Shenk, USA, 39 min.
The Queen of Basketball – Ben Proudfoot, USA, 22 min.
