I say this every year, but it bears repeating: Netflix’s track record with the Documentary Short category is truly remarkable. In the last eight years, the streamer has nabbed 12 nominations–more than any other category at the ceremony–and 2024 is ready for battle with four contenders waiting in the wings. Can all four nab a spot on this year’s shortlist?
This entry is not meant as an analysis of the race (another piece predicting the shorts on the shortlist will drop before the shortlist announcement on December 17), but rather a celebration of the strong four films vying for a spot. Netflix’s best year was just a few years ago when Audible, Lead Me Home, and Three Songs for Benazir landed nominations from the shortlisted 15. Last year was the first year that Netflix didn’t land a nomination since 2017, but I don’t see that repeating.
Let’s take a look at this year’s crop.
Makayla’s Voice: A Letter to the World
Julio Palacio’s film centers on one family’s love and embrace of their 14 year-old daughter, Makayla, as she finds her own voice through her autism. “I dream of one day having my own voice,” a title card tells us. “I hope it’s raspy, giving me a unique sound.” Palacio’s film breaks all the rules as he invites us to get to know Makayla’s wants and ambitions and how she is not solely defined by her autism.
Makayla expresses herself through narration from a voiceover actor that she selected, and we get to know her through the different interactions that she has with the people in her life. Roxy, her therapist, introduces us to a letter board where Makayla points to each letter to sound out the words she is thinking. Through narration, she compares this expression to Van Gogh’s use of paint. “For speaking people, language is only worthy if they are spoken by someone with speech,” she says. ‘The deepest messages come from those who, like Van Gogh and me, communicate differently.”
We hear letters written to Makayla’s mother and father (a boutique shop owner and a music producer, respectively), and Roxy explains how she wanted to make sure Makayla felt comfortable in her own body before introducing the life-changing letter board.
Palacio’s film is not just about communication but how we communicate. We are so used to our own shorthand or way of speaking that we forget that some people communicate in entirely different ways. Makayla wants to change the world with her letterboard, and we should all take a cue from her. We don’t need to change how we speak but how we listen. Palacio’s film is a generous, warm acceptance of how we should always allow our differences to bring us closer together.
Makayla’s Voice: A Letter to the World will be released on Netflix on December 11.
Julia’s Stepping Stones
I remember when filmmaker Julia Reichert accepting her Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for Netflix’s American Factory alongside her husband, co-director Steven Bognar. Mark Ruffalo presented the category, and, before she takes the mic, Reichert and the Oscar-nominated actor exachange a few pleasant words. We can’t hear it, but I imagine that they talked more about advocacy at a post-Oscars party. I’d like to think so, anyway.
Reichert passed away in 2022, and Julia’s Stepping Stones was the directors last film co-directed with Bognar. It’s a searing, poignant potrait of one’s own awakenings to your purpose in life and how that fire stays ignited. This is a lovely tribute to Reichert’s filmmaking and creative beginnings.
Growing up, Reichert hated dressed and loved the outdoors and nature. She was thankful that her parents both belonged to unions at work that allowed them to take family vacations to Mexico or the Grand Canyon. Reichert narrates her own story and there is a no-nonsene directness in how she sees herself. “I was a tomboy,” she says. “A geeky, bespeckled girl.”
Stepping Stones hones in on someone whose hunger for knowledge and their natural empathy leads to storytelling. Even though she didn’t feel comfortable in college (which she paid for herself), her social consciousness was raised by being around people working in the Women’s Rights Movement and the Civil Rights Movement. Why did magazine advertisements denegrate women so much? Why were people so comfortable living with the roadblocks set in the paths of others?
Even though we hear Reichert, the latest footage of her (from 2009) never shows her face. She is on the phone with her back to the audience, a choice that proves that some people are so intelligent and ahead of their time that we can sense their entire being just by viewing their back. Julia’s Stepping Stones is rich and made with undeniable love. It makes you want to be a better person.
Julia’s Stepping Stones debuts on Netflix on December 18.
The Turnaround
As someone who grew up on the heartbreak of the Pittsburgh Pirates, Kyle Thrash’s The Turnaround is very relatable, but you will be astounded by where it goes. Even though I am a Pittsburgh native and I have no ties to any sports teams whatsoever, there is a natural understanding of the underog or an underdog sports city. Thrash’s film, co-directed and produced by Oscar-winner Ben Proudfoot, is a triumphant story about humanity at its most devout. In a time when all feels lost, The Turnaround is a true inspiration.
“Philadelphia sports fans know despair,” Jon McCann, a lifelong Phillies fan, admits with a smirk. He knows that admirers of the Phillies have garnered a bad reputation over the years, but, hey, you’d be this passionate too if your favorite, hometown team has only won two World Series in 140 years.
When Trea Turner joins the Phillies in 2022, it feels like maybe, just maybe, McCann’s beloved team could return to being champions. After the season starts, Turner disappoints, and fans turn on him. They shout from the stands and tell him that he sucks, and commentators wonder if the team made a mistake. McCann details struggles in his own life: his car has been hit a few times and his mental health reaches a breaking point.
Where this film goes, I will not spoil, because this film it restores your faith in your fellow man. We do better when we work together and understand the meaning of community, and The Turnaround just might even inspire sports agnostics to select their own sports team.
The Turnaround is streaming now on Netflix.
The Only Girl in the Orchestra
You are going to fall in love with Orin O’Brien. I am confident in this, because I did while watching Molly O’Brien’s film, The Only Girl in the Orchestra. Molly’s aunt repeatedly says that she didn’t crave the spotlight, but it might crave her. There is something special in how a musician or artist can make you understand an artistic medium just by listening to them talk effortlessly about it.
“I love Orin becaue she is a source of radiance in the orchestra,” Leonard Bernstein once said. “Her musical involvement is total, and whenever I look in her direction and inevitably find her looking intently back at me, I marvel at this concentration.” O’Brien was the first female musician hired full-time by the New York Philharmonic in 1966, but her insistence on being a part of the ensemble is refreshing. She likens to playing the double bass to being in the belly of a vast ship, all those notes washing over you or letting the music create motion to steer you forward.
Most people that direct a film about their famous relative would romanticize too much, but O’Brien keeps a firm grasp on the portrait of her aunt. Even though Orin downplays her accomplisments, her niece allows her to speak to us in a frank and honest way when it comes to dealing with sexism in the reporting of the industry, but that candidness is also welcome with Orin welcomes her students for private lessons.
O’Brien’s film is bracing in its elegance and full and ample in its admiration.
The Only Girl in the Orchestra debuts on Netflix on December 4.
We will break down the best chances for these docs in the upcoming shortlist analysis, but which of the four sounds the most appealing to you? Which do you think has the best shot at making the cut?
