Edit 8/24 7pm PST: I’ve confirmed with the Exec Producer of POV that the film rights are for the USA only and thus geo-blocked for International audiences. My apologies!
Public television in America has a great documentary program called POV that highlights worthy films that aren’t otherwise commercially viable. Every season they do a program of shorts, and 2011’s “Short Cuts” program aired last night, featuring 6 really good entries. In a very cool move, the films are now available online through the POV website, or for ipad/iphone through the free PBS app (watch FutureStates shorts too!).
Of the 6 a full 4 are animated. 2 are from StoryCorps, a great oral history project funded in large part through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Those films, Miss Devine and No More Questions! are highly recommended. A third animated piece comes from Andrea Dorfman of Canada. Flawed is the story of her romance with a plastic surgeon and the process of coming to terms with her own beauty. A stop-motion of the artist at a table drawing compositions in ink and watercolor, this piece is one of the prize jewels of the NFB’s recent catalog, and I had been eagerly awaiting its arrival online. The final short doc, Tiffany , is really short and rather sad, the tale of a man and wife fighting over a lamp in a divorce. An interesting topic, but sadly not developed enough.
On the live-action front the selection is slimmer. With Big Birding Day filmmaker David Wilson offers a glimpse into the world of competitive birdwatching, as three friends attempt to see as many species as possible in 24 hours. It is a neat look into a world I was unfamiliar with, but the subjects were ultimately too nice and too well-adjusted to make truly compelling viewing, as in the end the story focused more on friendship than competition. Too much reality TV in my media diet? Maybe. The final film in the program is titled Six Weeks and looks at the adoption process in Poland, through the eyes of the mother giving up her child, and through those of the grateful new parents. The longest of the 6 shorts, it is also the heaviest, delivering that fix of real-life drama and jubilation that so many documentary-junkies are addicted to.
The producers at POV have also made a wealth of supplemental material available, including interviews with most of the filmmakers and video talking to the Rauch Bros., the animators behind the StoryCorps series. This is must watch program for short film documentary lovers, so check it out!
Watch at POV
Jason Sondhi
