Documentary Shorts – Program Two
SYNOPSIS:
Freedom Swimmer
Directed by: Olivia Martin-McGuire
The story of a grandfather’s perilous swim from China to Hong Kong that parallels his granddaughter’s own quest for a new freedom.
15 min / UK / 2021 / Chinese
Rating: MT
His Name Was Cargo
Directed by: Marco Signoretti
Italy, late 1960s. Two strangers arrive in a village in the South: the first one has a movie camera, the second one has a gun. Crossing that wasteland, the two will have an unexpected opportunity to change the course of history.
17 min / Italy / 2021 / Italian
Rating: MT
Holding Moses
Directed by: Rivkah Beth Medow
Randi wanted pregnancy, birth, a family – not dreams typically associated with a butch, queer woman. But Randi was a dancer interested in expanding the natural rhythms of her body. When Moses was born profoundly disabled, her world shrank to the size of her infant son. She pulsed between shock and shame, tormented with worry about her son’s pain and future life.
17 min / USA / 2021 / English
Rating: MT
Memory
Directed by: Nerea Barros
The Aral Sea measured 68,000 square km. Millions of people depended on it. Moynaq, once a prosperous town that lived off tourism and the fishing industry, is now a poor village in northern Uzbekistan where each day is more difficult. This lyrical documentary tells of the legacy between a grandfather and his granddaughter. He continues to dream of the sea, she was born in a desert.
15 min / Spain / 2021 / Spanish
Rating: MT
Sentence of Michael Thompson, The
Directed by: Haley Elizabeth Anderson & Kyle Thrash
Michael Thompson is the longest serving non-violent offender in the history of Michigan and he is finally up for clemency. In 1994, he was arrested for selling three pounds of marijuana to a close friend turned police informant and was sentenced to 40 to 60 years in prison and has been there ever since. After 25 years, three appeals, and two denied applications for clemency it seems like Michael may finally have a chance at freedom.
25 min / USA / 2022 / English
Rating: MT
Unspoken
Directed by: William Armstrong
A beautiful short film centered around contemporary choreographer Paul Lightfoot losing his father during the pandemic. Not permitted into the hospital to say goodbye, he began working with a dancer remotely to create a performance that processes the emotions he and many have shared worldwide. The result is a look behind the curtain into the process of a modern master interpreting loss into physical form – and a powerful beacon of hope to carry us through uncertain times.
7 min / Denmark & Botswana / 2021 / English
Rating: MT
*program total runtime 96 min
