A Love Song for Latasha 5.5/10 The true story of a 15-year-old black girl who was murdered by an Asian woman that helped spark the 1992 LA riots, “A Love Song for Latasha” interviews her cousin and best friend decades later. The content in this short documentary isn’t the problem here; the film making is. The director uses footage in reverse, animation, fake old school video camera footage, etc. but none of it strengthens the content but instead distracts and tries to be stylistic but playing footage backwards adds nothing to the narrative. Well-intentioned but not well made.
#InconvenienceStore
Do Not Split 6.5/10 Coming in at over half an hour long, “Do Not Split” follows the “Free Hong Kong” protests over the past couple of years. As someone who has followed this myself, it was interesting to see lots of on the ground footage and for those who didn’t know this was going on, this is a great eye opener. The evils of China and even some government officials in Hong Kong are clearly shown but my big complaint was that the documentary felt unfocused. It jumped around a lot without a clear, narrative line. Could have used more focus but the important and timely subject matter make this worth watching.
#FlawedVillaVsHongKong
Hunger Ward 8/10 The longest documentary short coming in at 40 minutes, “Hunger Ward” highlights two health care workers dealing with starving children due to the ongoing war in Yemen. This is truly heart breaking and you even see babies, toddlers and children die onscreen so this is not for the faint of heart. Brings awareness to the issue and provides a website at the end for people to donate to, these kinds of docs are hard to watch but extremely important to see.
#TheHungerDames
Colette 8.5/10 Barely beating “Hunger Ward”, this is probably the strongest out of all the nominees (and thankfully it won the Oscar). “Colette” follows a 90-year-old woman visiting a concentration camp 75 years after her brother died there. Colette’s personality shifts from feisty and funny to heartbroken and damaged and seeing her experience her vast range of emotions was quite a sight to behold. The only doc short that I cried in, Colette showing the young girl who travels with her what she went through and teaching her life lessons was emotionally powerful and will stick with me for some time.
#TheGreatColette
A Concerto Is a Conversation 4/10 The weakest of the bunch, “A Concerto Is a Conversation” hails from race baiters at the New York Times, so it is no surprise that this falls flat. The doc focuses on a grandfather and his grandson and the film excels when the grandfather is front and center. His story and the struggles he faced due to his skin color were enthralling and emotional. When the film pivots to his son who tries to play the victim card, the film falls painfully flat. The style of extreme close ups on the men’s faces was also overused and off putting. A grandfather’s story that could have been great is ruined by woke politics of the far left.
#DeclarationOfDependence
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