Posted by: Cathy and Len

We had a great time Tuesday afternoon watching the five short documentaries nominated for Academy Awards this year.  All really interesting films, one of which we even have a tangential connection to!  Read to the bottom to see what that connection is.  The five films are:

Kings Point.  Follows the lives of senior citizens living in Florida.  All had moved there at a younger age with their spouses and now deal with issues of loss, love and companionship.

Mondays at Racine.  A very moving look at the lives of women with breast cancer and the beauty salon owners who open their shop to them to help them deal with the realities of chemotherapy and disfigurement caused by the disease and its treatment.

Inocente.  A 15-year old homeless girl displays amazing artistic talent.  Great camerawork — including mounting a camera on a paintbrush — captures the creative process.

Open Heart.  Rwandan children travel 2,500 miles to a hospital in Sudan for critical cardiac surgery available nowhere else in Africa.  Angelique steals the show.

Redemption.  Follows the lives of New York City “canners,” people who collect cans and bottles and redeem them for the deposit as a way of surviving tough economic times.

Oscar winning director Dan Junge was the “MC” for the shorts presentation.  His comments on making documentaries and why the short form is useful were so on the mark, and it is worth getting the DVD with the shorts compilation for his comments alone.  Thank you Dan.

So what is our (tangential) connection?  When we went to The Good Pitch in San Francisco in the autumn of 2010, at a very early stage of the Threads project,  to see how documentaries are pitched to potential funders, Inocente was one of the films being pitched.  While at the Good Pitch, Cathy met and had a nice talk with Yael Melamede, producer of Inocente.

Thanks to the Grand Cinema in Tacoma for showing these films.  It is great to see these independent documentary shorts get recognition.  Congratulations to everyone involved and keep up the good work.  You are teaching and inspiring us!