DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILMS - 3
Four more short film documentaries, including an early classic from the Eames brothers, and two festival winning animated short documentaries.
Ryan by Chris Landreth (2004) (Canada) (14m)
Ryan by Chris Landreth won the Oscar in 2005. It a strange mix of animation and documentary and introduces us to Ryan Larkin, a pioneering Canadian animator of the 1960s, who after succumbing to addiction was reduced to begging on the streets by the time of this film was made. Landreth interviews his compatriot and friend in an attempt to gain an insight into a troubled genius as well as understand the process that led towards his ignominious downfall.
The Shock Doctrine by Cuarón et al (2007) (US/UK/Canada) (7m)
Co-written and co-directed by Alfonso Cuarón, Jonás Cuarón, and Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine is based on Klein's book of the same name, and would be turned into a full-length feature film in 2009. It looks into the idea of disaster capitalism, in which neo-liberal capitalism feeds on natural disasters, war and terror to establish its dominance.
Dock Ellis & The LSD No-No by James Blagden (2010) (US) (5m)
Doc Ellis, who died in 2008, was a baseball player for the Pittsburgh Pirates and is probably best known for throwing a 'no-hitter' or 'no-no' (a good thing!) against San Diego in 1970 and later admitting that he had thrown the 'no-no' while under the influence of the hallucinogen LSD. It is this now infamous incident that he narrates himself to a drug-fuelled backdrop in this engrossing Sundance animation.
Powers of Ten by Charles & Ray Eames (1977) (US) (9m)
Powers of Ten was created by the American designers, Charles Eames and Ray Eames and examines the colossal size differences found when one starts off with an overhead view of a family of picnickers and then zooms out by the power of ten every ten seconds. Having reached the furthest limits of the universe, it begins to zoom in again and enters the molecules of the human body...
