One of my favorite things to do in this season is to watch the Oscar nominated short films- documentary, live action and animated. Last week I saw the documentaries, each one a powerhouse in its own way.
I don’t think I breathed at all through Incident, the riveting film about a Chicago police shooting told from body cams and surveillance footage at the scene. I am Ready Warden, made me question everything I thought I knew about prisoners on death row and the possibility of redemption. The poignant story of Japanese first graders as they work towards a musical performance is told in Instruments of a Beating Heart.
I loved all of them, and I think it’s going to be a tough choice to pick a winner. I was inspired by the creative lives of the women depicted in The Girl in the Orchestra and Death by Numbers.
The Girl in the Orchestra” tells the story of Orin O’Brien who in 1966 became the first woman to perform in the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. After 55 years as a double bass player, she still continues to teach music. Her life is her music- her students are her children and her instruments are her pets, she says. Modest, and content to be in the background, it wasn’t an easy life in the early days in a male dominated field, but she devoted her life to making beautiful music for others to enjoy and to pass along her knowledge. Truly inspiring.
Death by Numbers, written by Sam Fuentes, one of the survivors of the Marjory Stonemason Douglass shooting in Feb. 2018 Her journal comes alive with musings, calculations, and drawings which help her process this tragedy. Fuentes eloquently shares her deepest feelings, even the dark ones. She confronts the shooter in court as his sentence is being decided. After living through such a horrific experience, the vulnerable confrontation is both courageous, beautiful, and healing.
For Sam, her creative life, has kept her alive.
Well done, ladies!