A lot of my time at this year’s Indy Shorts included meeting a lot of filmmakers. Almost every screening and program I attended was sold out, and the audiences were genuinely curious to see as much as they could. Every screening featured a short Q&A, but I took the festival up on numerous invitations for networking events. The entire vibe of the festival felt very communal with producers, performers, writers and directors all interested in each other’s work. It was very refreshing to see in a festival environment.
At one such function, I chatted with director and producer T.C. Johnstone about his film The Power of Small. Since he was so generous with his time (as was producer Will Stoller-Lee), I wanted to make sure to see his film at the festival, so I snagged one fo the last seats to the Lens of Hope program.
Lens of Hope
While this showing only featured three films, there was a lot of chatter as I exited the theater. Lens of Hope strives to bring audiences stories that highlight kindness and empowerment through the thematic ideal of hope. I sometimes consider myself to be a big softie, and I have to admit that this program did me in. In the best ways.
Cycling Without Age won Indy Shorts’ Lens of Hope Award last year, and this encore presentation was a great way to begin the program. The doc short highlights a program that whisks senior citizens out of nursing homes so they can get out in nature while being pedaled on large rickshaws. It’s a film that showcases how a small excursion can change your attitude and disposition. I watched the film last year and it landed on my top ten list of best of the festival, but its emotional played even bigger when I saw it on a big screen.
Johnstone’s The Power of Small blew me away for how it proves that there are people in the world who are determined to stay positive and to spread that kindness forward. If you are sick of the news notifications on your phone or the feeling of being bombarded by dark and dreary stories, I encourage you to seek out Johnstone’s film. After you check out the film, take a quick look at my review.
A few of the film’s subjects–including Stoller-Lee and Terri Bullock– attended the screening, and Bullock explained how she had to let go and trust the process of Johnston’s vision to get the word out even more.
“T.C. spent two years asking me if he could tell this story, and I always declined,” Bullock says. “One of my requirements of my kindness ambassadors was that I asked them if I could be anonymous in the process. During those two years, I realized that there was still a lot of work that needed to be done and a lot more kindness projects that needed to be initiated. When T.C. presented the idea, he told me that he would use the footage of my dogs and use my voice in the narration. I loved that. At some point, though, we talked about it again, and he asked me if he could use the actual [interview] footage. I circled back to that whole trust issue and I decided that I was in the deep end with him. I needed to trust him.”
Aaron Johnson’s The 17% follows Collette Divitto, a woman born with Down Syndrome as she runs her burgeoning cookie business, Collettey’s Cookies. People with disabilities do not get offered the right amount of work opportunities, so Divitto took matters into her own hands after she faced rejection after rejection. Johnson captures Divitto’s exuberance with ease no matter if she is hanging out in the kitchen with her co-workers or discussing the business operations with her mother and business partner.
Johnson’s film sustains an impressive drive as we follow Collette on her journey. You automatically feel how determined she is, and you want to support her story (and her shop) in any way they can. This is definitely a young director to watch.
At the post-screening Q&A, Johnson explains how he reached out to Divitto.
“I was on Instagram Reels and I saw Collette making cookies, so I shot her a cold email,” he says, with a smile. “i told her that I was a first-time film student and this would be my first documentary. I grew up in a special education classroom, and I was always around people with disabilities, whatever you define disability as. As time went on, I found that in the media there was a lack of representation for the disabled community, and I believe there was authentic credibility in the presentation.”
The 17% won both the Lens of Hope Award as well as the Documentary Audience Choice Award.
Oscar Winner Doug Blush
A quartet of excellent films packed my second documentary program. I have a preference to watch documentaries in a theater to get a sense of a collective experience with important issues, and of the three Oscar short film categories, Documentary Short always surprises me the most. Producer Doug Blush was present at this program to chat about these films with the filmmakers. A lot of these films take on a larger issue but position the point of view through a specific person or groups of people.
Lisa Klein’s Out Here ripped through me. Chronicling a portion of Sacramento’s unhoused crisis, we are guided by a social worker named Mark as he makes personal connections with those who are struggling to get off the street. In California, almost 200,000 people live without a home to go to every night. Mark is very candid with both unhoused individuals and Klein’s team about how he struggled with addiction and was able to to get himself on a steady path, but what he sees on a daily basis takes a toll on him.
Mark has an ability to connect with people in humorous ways, and Klein hones in on a lot of animals that are hanging out in the background or that belong to some people that Mark is trying to help. Klein never loses sight on the larger issue at hand but also makes us understand that these small meetings are how huge change can take root. When Mark tries to help a trio of people that he thinks might be underage, he beings to worry that he hasn’t done enough. In another segment, one family is offered a motel room for a month, but they are terrified that they won’t be able to make enough money to pay for it when the time comes.
Brad Bailey’s Her Fight, His Name: The Story of Gwen Carr and Eric Garner knocked the wind out of the entire room when it screened at Indy Shorts. Carr’s son, Eric Garner, was murdered in 2014 and the video of Staten Island police tackling him to the ground and ignoring his protests that he couldn’t breathe sent shockwaves through America. Bailey’s film does not focus on the inexcusable violence imposed onto Black American citizens, but you feel it just right outside the frame. His film, however, records Carr’s resilience as she becomes a figure of activism.
What Carr endures is heartbreaking, especially when we see how much loss she has encountered since her son’s murder. Just the interviews between Bailey and Carr retain such a celebration of motherly love that it should be seen on the biggest screen possible. A lot of discussion is devoted to Carr’s family tree, but Bailey literally takes us inside these images. These images almost envelop us as we ponder if our real life present can collide with the past.
Bailey, who revealed to the audience that he flew into Indianapolis by way of New York City from Egypt, took a poll of the audience to see who had heard about Garner’s story before seeing his film. Most of the audience had.
“You have to do a story like this right,” he says. “It took six years. Our whole team all around the world just put everything into this. We did it because of her–it was a love letter to Gwen. We wanted people to understand that it’s not about race, it’s not about nationality, not about geography. We wanted people of all types and stripes to be able to identify with a mother who lost her son. That was the most critical aspect of it.”
Alex Herz’s Middleground, like a lot of documentary shorts I’ve saw this season, is a family affair. Herz’s brother, Griffin, has Down Syndrome, and he recently finished a program at Fresno State for adults with disabilities. Before he can live on his own for the first time, Griffin moves in with a trio of friends under the supervision of his mother, Karen, because of a gap in support in the residential program.
The strengths of Herz’s film lie in two fronts. He hones in on his brother’s personality while also recognizing his anxieties of staring his life as a young adult away from his parents. Herz shows how living an ordinary life is, in itself, extraordinary. The other curious thread comes in the bond between Karen and a social worker who share experiences with one another about being a mother to a child who is differenly abled. There is a moment towards the end of Herz’s film that will tug at your heart so effortlessly that you will feel it swell in your chest.
Ben Rekhi’s The Breakthrough Group grants us access to a behavorial center in Salt Lake City like never before. There’s something about being within this building’s walls that make you feel like you are looking over your shoulder as others can see every action you make as you try to take steps in the right diretion. Rekhi introduces us to many residents who are trying to avoid returning to prison, but we feel how their skin itches or how they feel viewed by their peers.
There is a section where a hard-nosed leader is trying to get members of this community to confess to stealing sodas from the basement when no one is looking. At first, you assume that he is going too hard for no reason, but the more time we spend in this scenario, the more come to understand this leader’s methodology and how we are blinded by our privileges and biases. We see how these residents’ emotions can soar when it comes to interactions with each other, and there is a touching throughline about how a young queer woman’s demons led to her arrest and addiction. Rekhi’s film is unapologetic and absolutely engrossing. It’s one of my favorite films of the festival.
A Bloody, Hilarious Time
The comedy programs at this year’s Indy Shorts sold out really quickly, and I can see why. It may sound naive, but what better feeling is there than laughing with a crowd of strangers? Since I couldn’t redeem a ticket to the second Dark Comedy program, I took advantage of Indy Shorts’ rush program and nabbed a ticket once the staff found some empty seats.
I don’t think I could do a lot of these films justice since the comedy lives so sharply on screen. I will say, though, that Mo Matton’s Gender Reveal is bold in its confidence when a trio of queer people end up at the most traditional gender reveal party known to man. I don’t think I could recall a film that didn’t show the difference in priorities between (some) gay and straight people.
Cheat Meal pokes fun at our image-obsessed culture while, you know, making things lighter with a muscle-bound, bro-y villain. I will never look at treadmill the same way again. Death of an Actor showcases the absurdity in how we move on from the death of celebrity after celebrity. Keep Your Rubbish made me squirt and snort as one influencer finds her unexpected niche.
Peace, Quiet, and a Little Dirt is an alarmingly charming comedy about two killers–one young, one veteran–who find thsemselves burying their respective bodies and expounding on their different life experiences. There will always be a need for hit men, after all. Like working the corner, it’s one of the oldest professions. Kevin Samar’s film balances the right amount of comedy with the unexpected father-son, familial tone.
Little Dirt’s creative team, including the actors, took center stage for a brief chat about the film, and Samar talked about the inspiration for his short.
“I’m a visual effects artist when I’m not working on my own films, so I do green screens with monsters and explosions for studio films,” Samar says. “When you’re starting out, you need access to expensive software and powerful computer to run it, so it can be frustrating when you’re starting out. Around the same time, my father was retiring and we talked a lot about his career and what hopes I had for my own. We sort of realized that it’s this universal feeling we all have about our lives and our aspirations so we can find meaning on a day-to-day basis. I wanted to present that thought process through the most unrelatable possible viewpoint, which is through these two monster human beings that are doing terrible things.”
We will have one more entry in our Indy Shorts coverage. Keep your eyes peeled!
