The more that I look over this year’s contenders on the Documentary Short shortlist, the more I am convinced that it is one of the strongest lists of the category in a few years. I always think that voters gravitate towards subjects that interest them first in terms of determining the order in which to watch things, so passion goes a long way when deciding the nominees and the eventual winner.
Will voters want to see a film about the LA fires? Will they learn something new about the AIDS crisis? Perhaps a quieter film about climate change will light a personal spark in someone? I am always curious as to how people select which films to watch first, so let’s take a look at the films themeselves. Maybe you can tell us which film you would most want to check out if you were a voter? There are a lot of connections with family, both blood and found, in this year’s crop.
Joshua Seftel’s All the Empty Rooms
There is a calmness and somber respect paid through Seftel’s latest film. His last Oscar entry, the nominated Stranger at the Gate, felt like it danced on the edge of an emotional outburst as it explored whether the idea of forgiveness has limitations on it. Empty Rooms takes place in the wake of violence as journalist Steve Hartman and photographer Lou Bopp snap pictures of the bedrooms of children who were murdered in school shootings across America.
One of the things that I noted to Seftel in my interview with him was how the documentary is never overly somber. Of course, we are meeting parents whose lives have been irrovocably changed by violence, but Seftel’s direction is still, kind, and patient. He makes a film about acceptance and moving on but never diminishes the pain or the long journey ahead.
All the Empty Rooms is streaming now on Netflix.
Ondi Timoner’s All the Walls Came Down
The idea of a personal curse is one of the first thoughts in Ondi Timoner’s All the Walls Came Down, a deeply personal memoir of how the latest Los Angeles fires ripped through and destroyed the homes of Altadena, Calfornia. One of the starkest images throughout this short is when we see residents wearing full body suits with masks on their faces as the camera shows neighborhoods flattened by tragedy. Timoner doesn’t hit the audience over the head and lets you feel as we equate these safety suits with a devastating pandemic.
How do you wrap your head around the notion of rebuilding your home? The word “build” was very present in my mind in several ways, as we see blocks of houses leveled and we think about how these people will try to build back the memories that they once carried with them. Timoner could have made a film just about her own personal experience (that scene with the her father’s bathrobe will get you…), but then it opens up to a larger viewpoint. In a way, this documentary is like the process of grief–sometimes you have to mourn by yourself and with those closest to you before you can connect with others who are going through the same thing.
All the Walls Came Down is streaming now via The Los Angeles Times.
Craig Renaud & Brent Renaud’s Armed Only with a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud
The way that Brent Renaud speaks to the camera from the very beginning of Armed Only with a Camera instantly yanks you in. When we first meet the photojournalist, he is following a young man–who has been on his own since the age of ten–as he makes his way from Honduras to the United States. This short introduction tells us so much about Brent before we discover his scope as an artist and his bravery as a journalist.
Brent was shot and killed by the Russian military in March of 2023, and Craig, his younger brother and this film’s director, never shies away from the harsh realities of war. “It’s what Brent would’ve wanted.” Some films might opt to show Brent’s accomplishments before the war in Ukraine began, but Craig’s decision to show us everything up front is bold.
There is a duty in carrying on the truth, especially at such personal cost. Brent Renaud dedicated his life to showing how warzones unfolded and giving real space to areas of the world that we only see on the news.
Armed Only with a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud is streaming now on HBO Max.
Mimi Wilcox’s Bad Hostage
Filmmaker Mimi Wilcox does a remarkable feat in taking a family story and transforming it into something more ambitious and thoughtful. It’s like taking a history lesson and a family album and smashing them together.
Wilcox’s grandmother, Michaela Madden, found herself in the middle of a hostage situation when two men knocked on her door asking for help. It didn’t take long for Madden to discover that this pair were fleeing from a scuffle from law enforcement, and she, and her children, were now quite literally in the middle of a standoff. What sets Wilcox’s film apart than just another familial story is how she expands it to include parallels between the public fallout of Patty Hearst’s kidnapping in 1974 and the hostage situation at Norrmalmstorg Square in 1974. The public was seemingly ravenous to take down women in all three instances, and Wilcox gives us the permission to explore how the phrase ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ was much more harmful than we could’ve expected.
Wilcox’s film is available to rent through January 22 via Kinema. You can watch our interview with the filmmaker here.
Matt Nadel’s Cashing Out
I naively thought I knew everything there was to know about the AIDS epidemic–I have consumed as many books, films, documentaries, and television shows about the height of the crisis. Nadel’s film, though, reminds us of the sense of community as well as how important it is to teach the next generation about our lives.
An AIDS diagnosis used ot be a surefire death sentence, and an entire generation of beautiful, talented, fabulous men lost their lives. Nadel introduces us to several individuals who came through the crisis but took advantage of viatical settlements. A patient who was given a terminal diagnosis would sell their life insurance to an investor who would, essentially, bank on the person’s demise. Nadel shows how most news outlets, when they discovered these payouts, would used worlds like “ghoulish” to describe it. Sure, there is that element, but Cashing Out shifts that focus to a rather beautiful thing. Those who were told that they were going to die or that they had nothing to live for could see life back in Technicolor again.
Nadel’s film is a testament to queer resilience. I was so floored by this film.
Cashing Out is available to stream via The New Yorker, and you can watch our interview with Nadel here.
Sarah Keo & Jeff Orlowski’s Chasing Time
“I’m not out here just snapping pictures and trying freeze my fingertops off. I feel the spiritial essece of this landscape all the time,” James Balog says. “It’s a lot of what draws me back here.”
In 2007, Balog’s Extreme Ice Survey places 28 cameras on 21 glaciers in Greenland, Iceland, the Alps, Northern Rockies and Alaska to shoot every hour of daylight resulting in over 200K pictures to create timelapsed videos to create “the world in flux”; the footage is absolutely staggering with showing how glaciers are retreating. Seeing before and after photos make us feel like we are in a boat that we know has a hole in the bottom of it. How will we recover from this–can we even recover from this.
Keo and Orlowski’s film spends much time with Balog as he recovers from his battle with cancer. Once he has finished his work, will someone else take up the mantle? “These are living, breathing places…and they’re dying…” he says. The tone of his voice lingers.
Chasing Time is available to stream via PBS.
Hilla Medalia’s Children No More: ‘Were and Are Gone’
If you were on your evening walk or out taking the dog and you stumbled upon a silent vigil for the children killed in Gaza, what would you do? Could you ignore their faces? Would you say something to those participating? Just seeing those pictures from the distance on our screens conjures up emotion, and whether you say something or not, those images stick with you
These silent protests take place every week in Tel Aviv, and there are more and more pictures with each gathering. As we see this group collect themselves and talk over their plan, we also meet a woman tasked with collecting information about Palestinian casualties. She scours for hours online trying to find a picture of a child when they were happy, and, in some incidents, she cannot find one. In these cases, the protestors draw and color a flower.
Watching people react in various protests is surreal as we are seeing their reaction in real time, and the group faces a lot of backlash on a crowded beach in the film’s back half. “Our goal is to awaken something inside,” says one organizer early on. Medalia’s film takes you by the shoulders and shakes you unti you are awake.
Children No More: ‘Were and Are Gone’ is available to rent via Kinema.
Eden Wurmfeld & Yael Bridge’s Classroom 4
Some assume that once they get to a certain age, they stop learning, but we take on things from everyone no matter the circumstance, age, or background. An award-winning teacher brings together incarcerated students and “outside” students to learn about themselves and the connections they make with strangers and their fellow man.
Reiko Hillyer’s course, The History of Crime and Punishment, starts with ice breakers and the history of the birth of prisons. They answer simple questions like, ‘People might be surprised to learn this about me…’ to learning about the closeness of prison barracks. They define what a prison is, and you cannot help but automatically wonder about perspective and privilege when you are hearing students on both sides speak to their experiences and expectations.
With education constantly being questioned and ridiculed, Wumfeld and Bridge’s film intelligently reinforces the notion that your circumstance does not define you. And you can always try to change your point of view.
Classroom 4 is streaming now via PBS.
Geeta Gandbhir & Christalyn Hampton’s The Devil Is Busy
Tracii, the head of security of an Atlanta women’s healthcare clinic in Atlanta, lets us in through the doors in the early hours on a typical day. She sets out some snacks in a waiting room and explains that she checks every room to make sure that no one is lurking without permission. There’s a mounting tension in this film, as if we have to check over our shoulders to make sure we are safe.
Some patients travel from across state lines to be seen since Roe vs. Wade was overturned in 2022, and protestors call out to women who are trying to enter the facility. “That’s Doug,” Tracii tells us, casually. I’ve never thought about how some people would come back day in and day out to try and dissuade others from doing what they determined is right for them and their bodies. We hear those antagonistic voices even when we are inside since they are using megaphones.
Gandbhir and Hampton’s film gets under your skin. It was lodged in my mind for a while after I watched it.
The Devil Is Busy is streaming on HBO Max.
Jay Rosenblatt’s Heartbeat
“This film was shot 25 years ago,” begins Jay Rosenblatt’s latest film chronicling the conversations shared with his wife, Stephanie, about trying to have a family. Rosenblatt has never been shy to turn his camera on himself or his own history. He was nominated in 2021 for When We Were Bullies and explored how his guilt over a bullying incident in his childhood came roaring back. He followed that up–and was nominated again–the following year with How Do You Measure a Year?, an essay featuring his own daughter, Ella, being asked the same questions on her birthday.
When a couple decides to have a family, they wonder about money, how their lives will change, and ponder if they are ready. Rosenblatt’s film focuses so much on the worry of how having a baby will change the dynamic of their relationship. He checks in with Stephanie about how she feels about having a kid, accompanies her to doctor’s appointments, and he gets a bit shy when she turns the camera back on him.
Beginning in 1999, Heartbeat feels like a precursor to how we live our lives with mini computers in our pockets. In one moment, Stephanie questions why they are filming a diary at all when she is in so much pain before the couple gets into an argument as they are driving. You won’t find another filmmaker so ready and willing to crack himself or his emotions open to let you in. He wants to share so much with his audience.
Charlotte Cooley’s Last Days on Lake Trinity
Cooley’s film hit me like a ton of bricks in the most unexpected way.
The idea of home means something different to every single one of us, but what would you do if you were told that you had to move away from the place that you loved. Lakewood Park Estates, located in Hollywood, Florida, feels sunny and warm, but the owners of the land underneath this mobile park community is owned by Trinity Broadcasting Network, the largest Christian Television broadcasting in the world. Cooley’s film centers on three women who have lived at Lakewood for a combined total of 60 years.
Cooley’s film unearth’s a lot of huge, tragic themes and topics in an impressive amount of time. It’s almost like we can hear the clock ticking down as each month passes. There is so much here in terms of how we care for one another as well as personal responsibility–not to mention the housing crisis.
Cooley’s film is availanble to stream via The New Yorker. You can watch our interview with the filmmaker here.
Naja Pham Lockwood’s On Healing Land, Birds Perch
Two things happen very early on in Lockwood’s film. We are re-introduced to one of the most famous photographs from the Vietnam War: a South Vietnamese General, Nguyen Ngoc Loan, fires a gun at the temple of suspected Viet Cong official Nguyen Van Lem. The next words we hear come from June, Loan’s daughter: “That’s my dad.”
Lockwood’s film spends time with both families as they still look back at the reverberations of this conflict. June, as she sits for dinner with her family, says that they view it as a distant memory as Lem’s son and daughter mourn at an empty grave since their father’s remains were never retrieved. June later describes the crossroads of what it means to be Vietnamese after not visiting the country for fifty years.
Most films would pick only one side, but Lockwood’s gentle, meditative hand allows for our questions to expand on the situation itself. It’s remarkable in its delicacy.
Alison McAlpine’s perfectly a strangeness
We talk a lot about perspective and point of view when talking about documentaries–both feature and short–and no other film on this list gives you a unique perspective like McAlpine’s does.
A trio of donkeys wander through an unnamed desert before stumbling upon an abandoned observatory. We open at night with the orange light illuminating their walk, and McAlpine’s gaze on these donkeys is really captivating. I love the music that vibes through once we are crossing underneath of the observatory itself, and we keep coming back to the reflective orbs of these animals’ eyes. Once we get inside the observatory, you become part of a sensory, almost otherwordly experience. You wanted original–McAlpine delivered.
Thomas Jennings & Annie Wong’s Rovina’s Choice
When Donald Trump took back The White House in January of 2025, many people watched with fear and trepidation as he signed executive order after executive order. On his first day back in office, he signed over 35 orders, and one of them struck down was the program cuts to U.S.A.I.D., which guided humanitarian aid to countried suffering from severe poverty.
You cannot help but think of that stroke of the pen even if the president isn’t featured prominently in this doc. We see how a Kenyan refugee prepares for the fallout as food assistance leads to people getting sick from starvation. How do you prepare for a tidal wave? How do you abandon those who depends so greatly on our help? By November 5th or last year, over half a million people have already died from the decimation of U.S.A.I.D.
Rovina’s Choice is available to stream via The New Yorker.
Christopher Radcliff’s We Were the Scenery
“Maybe those who weren’t in the film could say that it felt real, but because I was in the film, it didn’t feel real,” is the first sentence we hear in Radcliff’s film about memory, identity, and Apocalypse Now. On the surface, this film feels like just a great story, but the filmmaking stays with you. It’s like we are learning about our parents and our heritage for the first time. We have questions, and we want to hunt for answers.
Cathy Linh Che’s parents, Hue Nguyen Che and Hoa Thi Le, fled Vietnam during conflict and became refugees in the Phillippines only to be taken in to become extras for one of the most prolific films about the Vietnam War. We see an old VHS tape of the couple’s recording of Francis Ford Coppola’s film as the couple expands on their experiences.
This feels like we are sitting in a family’s living room as they tell us a story for the first time. The narration comes from Che and Le about their experiences on the film, and the visuals dance in front of our eyes–almost as if we are trying to capture some unearthed image or thought along the way. It plays like the most present memory.
Radcliff’s film is available to stream on the film’s website.
What Makes the Cut?
I think this shortlist is very strong–one of the best that I have seen–so the Academy didn’t make it easy for us.
You never count out Netflix. They have garnered 13 nominations and 4 wins in only 8 years. That’s insane. Since it debuted at Telluride, it has been riding high, earning a Critics Choice nomination along the way. If we are going to stay with the idea that voters will pick topics that mean something to them, All the Walls Came Down could find its way into the mix since it is about Los Angeles. The war on healthcare easily bumps The Devil Is Busy into the conversation as well.
What takes those last two spots? Rosenblatt’s film makes sense since he was nominated for his last two shorts (When We Were Bullies and How Do You Measure a Year?), but will he go three for three? All of his films have a deep connection to him as a filmmaker, so other people might respond to that.
Classroom 4 has won a slew of festival prizes, and it’s one of the more optimistic films on this slate. I think that combination grounds it. That last spot, though, I am giving to Nadel’s Cashing Out. I am naturally tentative when it comes to queer narratives in any of the Academy’s radar, but everyone I have spoken to has loved this documentary. Straight people, gay people–they all tell me that it’s something they were surprised to learn from. I hope I am not let down.
My predictions (in alphabetical order)
All the Empty Rooms
All the Walls Came Down
Cashing Out
Classroom 4
The Devil Is Busy
Watch Out For:
Bad Hostage
Children No More: ‘Were and Are Gone’
Heartbeat
Last Days On Lake Trinity
On Healing Land, Birds Perch
Should’ve Been Here:
The Guy Who Got Cut Wrong
Saving Superman
Shanti Rides Shotgun
