Running five minutes longer than “Wicked” — and still nearly an hour below “The Brutalist” — the “2025 Oscar Nominated Short Films: Documentary” package makes for a heavy evening at the movies. Bodycam evidence of police brutality, raw survivor reactions to school shootings, a deep dive into the death penalty and so on. Shorts International’s annual round-up is essential viewing for those determined either to win their Oscar pool or to keep up with what the Academy considers the year’s best nonfiction work. But it’s not an easy watch, and though the finalists all seem “worthy” enough, one can’t help but crave a little levity.
Nothing new there. This award (which differs from the feature-length categories in that the nominees weren’t made for the big screen) often downplays formal innovation in favor of the underlying issues addressed by the finalists. That makes the first nominee, the New York Times-produced “Instruments of a Beating Heart,” somewhat surprising, since it deals not with hardship but a Japanese elementary school class learning to play Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” for the incoming first graders. At 23 minutes, director Ema Ryan Yamazaki’s portrait of the competitive young musicians — who cry when criticized and act like their lives are ruined when another student is tapped to play their instrument of choice — must have worked voters’ heartstrings. It may not be as strong as the other four, but don’t underestimate the power of seeing Ayama beam behind her COVID mask, or recognizing connections between this ecosystem and the world we navigate as adults.
The program then takes a hard-hitting turn into social justice territory, as archival footage master Bill Morrison (“Decasia”) re-creates a 2018 altercation between five police officers and a Black barber, Harith “Snoop” Augustus, who was killed by cops in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood. “Police shot! Shots fired at police!” a probationary officer calls out, though a split-screen analysis of bodycam and surveillance footage tells an entirely different story. Morrison provides just enough context via on-screen text, explaining how the murder of Laquan McDonald four years earlier had created tensions between police and the public. Now this. As if watching an inexperienced officer preemptively shoot a civilian five times in the back weren’t enough to make your blood boil, the cops’ subsequent behavior is all the more egregious: leaving Augustus to die in the street as they scramble to protect their own. More than three decades after the Rodney King beating, cameras remain the best tool for accountability, as filmmakers like Morrison demonstrate how cinema can make the case for justice.
Director Smriti Mundhra’s “I Am Ready, Warden” brings a humanist dimension to death row, focusing on the last days of convicted Texas killer John Henry Ramirez. Countless documentaries have focused on this controversial subject, though Mundhra manages to introduce a remarkable amount of complexity into her film’s short 37-minute running time. Sentenced to death after stabbing Pablo Castro 29 times outside a convenience store, Ramirez has made peace with his fate, as the title implies. But there are others who wish to see him spared, including district attorney Mark Gonzalez, who has moral objections to the state’s sentence. On the other side is Pablo’s now-adult son Aaron, who demands justice, but has a hard time finding comfort in Ramirez’s execution. Where longer projects might feel obliged to broaden the focus (the way Werner Herzog profiled five people in “On Death Row”), Mundhra instead goes deep, giving audiences much to consider.
The second music-centric short among this year’s nominees, “The Only Girl in the Orchestra” profiles Orin O’Brien, the first woman hired to play for the New York Philharmonic, now facing retirement after 55 years. Like 2021 nominee “A Concerto Is a Conversation,” the film was made by a family member of its subject, in this case Molly O’Brien, who may very well be the only person who could have convinced her aunt to go on camera. The daughter of film stars George O’Brien and Marguerite Churchill, Orin shows a contagious enthusiasm for her craft, wedded to a surprisingly self-effacing attitude (especially for someone held up and cut down as a leading woman in her field). O’Brien’s instrument, the double bass, is so big, one can’t help but notice those players in an orchestra, and yet, she prefers to disappear into the crowd, offering the following advice to leading a happy life: “You don’t mind playing second fiddle.”
The package ends on a gut-punch essay film, called “Death by Numbers,” that combines elements from two of the other noms. Like “Incident,” it refers to a 2018 tragedy — this one the Parkland high school shooting — and like “I Am Ready, Warden,” it grapples with what the survivors of that event consider to be an appropriate punishment for their terrorizer. Director Kim A. Snyder has made several films about the aftermath of such violence, including “Newtown” and “Us Kids,” on which she met Sam Fuentes, who turned the tragedy into a call to activism. This alternately philosophical and poetic short shows a different side of Fuentes, whose journals provide the backbone to a moving (but also manipulative) story of personal healing. Swept along by her words and the music of Ólafur Arnalds, the film makes a point of hiding the shooter’s face (so as not to reward his actions) until a powerful scene at the end, where it shows him absorbing a fiery statement Fuentes makes in court. These tragedies keep happening, and yet, such art not only dissuades imitators, but gives survivors — and a traumatized society — a chance to process what they’ve been through.
