The teams behind five Oscar-qualifying live-action and documentary short films gathered Friday evening at The Culver Theater in Culver City, California, for TheWrap Screening Series‘ shorts showcase. They discussed the origins of their films in a 45-minute conversation moderated by TheWrap’s Executive Editor of Awards, Steve Pond.
First on tap was “A Place to Fall Down,” a live action short film written and directed by Duane Hansen Fernandez that delves into the life of a mechanic struggling to deal with grief and loneliness. Those feelings and emotions were things Fernandez was interested in investigating “coming out of the pandemic,” and a 15-minute short film was an intriguing way to go about telling that story.
He acknowledged the challenges of digging into someone’s personal journey. “I can’t even describe how special it is when people share their stories with me and it creates a connection and a conversation,” Fernandez said.
Director Brad Bailey’s documentary short film, “Her Fight, His Name: The Story of Gwen Carr and Eric Garner,” chronicles six years of Gwen Carr’s life following her son’s 2014 death at the hands of the NYPD. It charts her transformation from a grieving mother to a vocal activist, as she faced personal and public challenges as she continued her fight for justice. When Bailey read about the 2017 death of Erica Garner, Carr’s granddaughter, from a heart attack, it led him to contact Carr.
“I wanted to understand the real people behind some of these big stories that we see, what happens to them when the cameras go away and what happens to them in their private, intimate moments after the crowds have gone away and they have to deal with this trauma, this grief,” Bailey said. “I wanted to really understand who [Gwen] was and how she actually went through that process, and you saw the result.”
Betsy West, director of documentary short “Once Upon a Time in Ukraine,” is known for making films about Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Gabby Giffords and Julia Child. But it was the harrowing stories about the children affected by and living through war that drew her in. It was seeing the footage of interviews with the Ukrainian families and children that moved her immensely.
“It takes you to a place that you haven’t seen before, and I think that’s what makes a good doc is to learn something, to see something, to be in a place that you haven’t been or experienced before,” West said. “There was something universal to me about the experience of these children.”
“A Guest in My Country” is a live action short that centers on an immigrant ride-share driver who takes a couple across town. Over the course of the drive, secrets are revealed. Written and directed by John Gray and produced by Melissa Jo Peltier, the film was inspired by the fascinating conversations they would have with their Uber, Lyft or taxi drivers about their lives and the circumstances that brought them there.
“We always hear these [stories]: I was an engineer, I was a pilot, I was a doctor. Combined with this philosophy that I’ve subscribed to… about always be kind and remember that everyone’s fighting their own battle, that’s what I wish we would all keep in mind more as we deal with each other,” Gray said of the inspiration for the film. “That we don’t know what other people have gone through, been through and we don’t know their secrets and they don’t know ours. That’s really what started it.” Peltier added that one of the biggest challenges was making “A Guest in My Country” on a “small scale” and being on a tight budget.
Director Lily Ahree Siegel’s documentary short, “Equal Play,” which fuses live action with animation, highlights the obstacles that face disabled children in sports and follows two British teenagers whose lives are forever changed by it as they fight against discrimination. “These kids have been going through it and continue to go through it,” Siegel said. “What kind of systemic things are happening in the world to limit kids accessing [sport]?”
She hoped that the film is a conversation starter for how to make movies more accessible to everyone of all walks of life. “The disabled community is roughly 20% of the population,” she said. “It’s a huge area of people being essentially left out. They want to see films too.”
Watch the full conversation here.
