Documentary Shorts - 5 nominations

The Elephant Whisperers

Kartiki Gonsalves and Guneet Monga

This film follows Bomman and Bellie who devote their lives to raising orphaned baby Elephants in South India. These darling creatures just capture your heart! It's not the most exciting and action packed film, but honestly those darn elephants are just so cute, and their relationships with their humans are so loving, and well what can I say? Call me Verouca Salt because I want one now! (How do we think an elephant would adapt to living in Los Angeles? Really well, right?)

Haulout
Evgenia Arbugaeva and Maxim Arbugaev

Haulout follows a marine biologist who tracks the annual migration of walruses in the Russian arctic. When they come on shore, he estimates approximately 90,000 or more walruses on this patch of land, which is greatly reduced year over year as the ice patches in the ocean melt. When walruses don't have places to rest as they migrate, they die or they arrive on shore dehydrated, hungry, bloated, and die on shore.  Hundreds of walruses die while on shore, in far increasing numbers every year - too many to be statistically insignificant.  But sure, climate change is a Chinese hoax. (Still, it's a bit of a sleeper, and the movie probably wouldn't have made my top 5 choices for Documentary short.)

How Do You Measure a Year?
Jay Rosenblatt

My favorite of the films, Jay Rosenblatt interviews his daughter every year on her birthday.  He asks the same set of questions like "how do you feel about our relationship," and "what is power," and "what do you want to be when you grow up?" The result is a charming, loving, heartbreaking, wonderful film (and darn it, why didn't I think of that???)  Girl dads everywhere will break down in tears whether your daughter is 2, 12, or 42.  Highlight moments include 13 (last week was my bat mitzvah) and 18 (I'm off to college and I'm really going to miss doing this because I like rituals.)

The Martha Mitchell Effect
Anne Alvergue and Beth Levison

Martha Mitchell was married to John Mitchell, a prominent member of the Nixon administration. She campaigned for Nixon, she was celebrated on talk shows for her audacious personality, and became a media darling which she used for Nixon's benefit and the benefit of the Republican Party. When the Watergate scandal comes to light, she begins to unravel who was involved and calls attention to the wrongdoings of the administration. She is then held against her will, publicly shamed, and a campaign to destroy her credibility begins.  (Sound familiar?) Here is a story of a woman who simply had to change her thinking in the face of facts, and when she knew she was wrong, she said she was wrong. She believed in the President and backed him, and then saw evidence that he had done wrong and she said so. To this day, publicly destroying a person who speaks the truth by calling him or her a liar and crazy (and all the things) is known as the Martha Mitchell Effect.

Stranger at the Gate
Joshua Seftel and Conall Jones

A former Marine in a small town begins to notice the number of Muslims in his hometown, which he decides is bad for America. He wants his country back. He wants to make America great again. He wants to return to a time (that never existed, actually) where White people were the only ones who lived in his world. When he decides to blow up the local Islamic Center, the first thing he needs to do is case the place so that he can identify where the maximum number of people gather so that he can kill for maximum effect. When members of the community welcome him, engage him, give him love as a stranger, he begins to appreciate their culture and eventually converts to Islam. The welcoming and hospitality of this community literally saves all of their lives.  This is another incredible story of a person allowing reality to change his mind when he sees that the story he has been told and the story he is telling himself are clearly wrong.