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Short Films

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  • Tell Them Anything You Want (with Maurice Sendak)

    Directed by Lance Bangs, Spike Jonze • Documentary • With Maurice Sendak • 2009 • 39 minutes

    From Lance Bangs and Spike Jonze, acclaimed director of WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE, comes A PORTRAIT OF MAURICE SENDAK, a loving look at one of the most cherished and controversial figures in children's l...

  • Trouble Sleep

    Directed by Alain Kassanda • Documentary • 2020 • 41 minutes

    Kassanda’s freewheeling urban portrait follows two young men, Fred and Akin, as they navigate the crowded roadways of Ibadan, Nigeria’s third largest city. Engineering graduate Fred is beginning a new job as a taxi driver, while Akin p...

  • A Call to Action: The Freedom Budget of 1966

    Directed by Jenny Alexander • Documentary • With Martin Luther King • 2023 • 7 minutes

    “A Call to Action: The Freedom Budget of 1966” tells the story of a little-known grassroots push for guaranteed income during the civil rights movement. 

  • Nixon’s Reversal

    Directed by Jenny Alexander and James Rutenbeck • Documentary • 2023 • 9 minutes

    Richard Nixon was on the verge of providing guaranteed basic income for all Americans. Then a story from 1795 changed his mind and the course of history.

  • Early Short Films of the French New Wave

    20 items

    All restored!

    Starting in the mid-1950s, a group of talented young filmmakers presented a radically new vision of French cinema. Dubbed the “Young Turks” by Cahiers du Cinéma co-founder André Bazin, they overturned the studio-based industry of the day, creating films that were modern, political....

  • Roy Smeck: Wizard of the Strings

    Directed by Peter Friedman • Documentary • With Roy Smeck, Gene Autry, Arthur Tracy, Mel Bay • 1984 • 27 minutes

    In 1926, Warner Brothers premiered the first sync-sound film ever made. It featured a largely unknown vaudeville performer named Roy Smeck. The film showcased Roy’s virtuosity on the ...

  • Edith+Eddie

    Directed by Laura Checkoway • Documentary • 2017 • 29 minutes

    Edith Hill and Eddie Harrison got married in Virginia at ages 96 and 95. Dancing at the honky-tonk and going to church, their newlywed life is filled with affection, prayer and faith. Since tying the knot, both Edith and Eddie have ex...

  • City of Gold

    Directed by Colin Low, Wolf Koenig • Documentary • 1957 • 21 minutes

    A vivid recollection of the Klondike gold rush at its frenzied height, City of Gold uses a collage of still photographs to compare Dawson City of the gold rush, when the gold from its river beds flowed freely through the stores...

  • Killing Time

    Directed by Fronza Woods • Drama • 1979 • 9 minutes

    KILLING TIME, an offbeat, wryly humorous look at the dilemma of a would-be suicide unable to find the right outfit to die in, examines the personal habits, socialization, and complexities of life that keep us going. Part of the mediamaking move...

  • Cat Listening to Music

    Directed by Chris Marker • Documentary • 1994 • 3 minutes

    Marker fans are familiar with the cartoon representation of Guillaume-en-Egypte, Marker's beloved pet cat, which has become the reclusive filmmaker's alter ego. In this charming short, Marker reveals the real-life Guillaume, stretched out...

  • Fannie's Film

    Directed by Fronza Woods • Documentary • 1981 • 15 minutes

    In FANNIE'S FILM, a 65-year-old cleaning woman for a professional dancers' exercise studio performs her job while telling us in voiceover about her life, hopes, goals, and feelings. A challenge to mainstream media's ongoing stereotypes o...

  • Aguilucho: Dance of the Harpy Eagle

    Directed by Daniel Byers • Documentary • With Jose de Jesus Vargas • 2021 • 22 minutes

    In the remote Darién Gap rainforest, indigenous communities face the advance of loggers and cattle ranchers, an existential threat to their way of life and the ecosystem upon which they rely. When a rare Harpy...

  • Sensei Fran Kicks Ass

    Directed by Simone Fary • Documentary • With Fran Vall • 2019 • 19 minutes

    Octogenarian Fran Vall holds a 6th degree black belt in Judo and a 5th one in Naginata (Japanese sword fighting). In addition to mentoring at three martial arts clubs she still finds time to work as a ski and snowboard in...

  • African Air

    Directed by Brian Storm • Documentary • 2011 • 8 minutes

    Flying in a motorized paraglider over one of the most diverse continents in the world, George Steinmetz captures in his photography the stunning beauty, potential, and hope of Africa's landscapes and people.

  • Integration Report 1

    Directed by Madeline Anderson • Documentary • 1960 • 20 minutes

    INTEGRATION REPORT 1 examines the struggle for black equality in Alabama, Brooklyn and Washington, D.C., incorporating footage by documentary legends Albert Maysles and Ricky Leacock, protest songs by Maya Angelou, and a speech by M...

  • 575 Castro St.

    Directed by Jenni Olson • Documentary • With Harvey Milk • 2008 • 7 minutes

    575 Castro St. reveals the play of light and shadow upon the walls of the Castro Camera Store set for Gus Van Sant's Oscar-winning feature film Milk. These mundane shots are almost bereft of movement and sound. So quiet,...

  • Clotheslines

    Directed by Roberta Cantow • Documentary • 1981 • 32 minutes

    Clotheslines presents an enduring, vivid account of “women’s work,” showing how the creative energies of women have often been zapped by mundane tasks—and, in turn, how such tasks often reflect a ritualistic approach to life and surviv...

  • Zygosis: John Heartfield and the Political Image

    Directed by Gavin Hodge & Tim Morrison • Documentary • With Gavin Hodge • 1991 • 26 minutes

    Documentary tracing the development of Photomontage, based on the pioneering work of John Heartfield, through to the contemporary use of these techniques in advertising and video. The film looks at the wo...

  • Nice Colored Girls

    Directed by Tracey Moffatt • Drama • With Gayle Mabo, Cheryl Pitt, Janelle Court • 1987 • 16 minutes

    This stylistically daring film audaciously explores the history of exploitation between white men and Aboriginal women, juxtaposing the “first encounter” between colonizers and native women with ...

  • Reel Voices

    6 items

    OVID is proud to present six highlights from Pacific Arts Movement’s “Reel Voices” program. Reel Voices empowers high school students to learn the art of documentary filmmaking. The subjects of these films were chosen by the students, and they will surprise you with their craft and insight.

    Plus...

  • The Way Things Go

    Directed by Peter Fischli & David Weiss • Documentary • 1987 • 30 minutes

    Inside a warehouse, Swiss artists Peter Fischli (b. 1952) and David Weiss (1946—2012) built an enormous, precarious structure 100 feet long made out of common household items—tea kettles, tires, old shoes, balloons, wooden...

  • Churchill's Island

    Directed by Stuart Legg • Documentary • With Lorne Greene • 1941 • 22 minutes

    Winner of the first Oscar for Best Documentary Short Subject! It presents the strategy of the Battle of Britain, showing with penetrating clarity the relationships between the various forces made up the island's defens...

  • A Game of Three Halves (series)

    5 items

    Directed by Matthew Bate & Case Jernigan • Documentary & Animation • 2021 • 23 minutes

    A five-part animated series that uses the unbridled creativity of handcrafted animation to reveal funny, profound, and illuminating stories from inside the world of football fandom. Premiered at Hot Docs 2021.

  • Time of the Locust

    Directed by Peter Gessner • Documentary • 1966 • 13 minutes

    Compiled from American news film, Vietnamese National Liberation Front combat footage, and unreleased material filmed by Japanese Television camera units, this now classic film by Peter Gessner provides one of the strongest treatises ag...