30 Minutes or Less

THE ABCS OF BOOK BANNING
THE ABCS OF BOOK BANNING
2024 Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Short. Over 2,000 books have been removed from school districts in the U.S. The ABCs of Book Banning, directed by Sheila Nevins in her inaugural debut, follows the human toll the future will pay for depriving children of their right to read and learn about a complex world. Interviews with children and authors shed light on this ongoing dangerous precedent.
PEOPLE OF THE LAKE
PEOPLE OF THE LAKE
On the northern shores of Lake Geneva where he has settled, Jean-Marie Straub brings to the water’s peaceful surface the history of a local resistance that shaped Switzerland’s post-war political landscape.
THE GRAVE OF ST. ORAN
THE GRAVE OF ST. ORAN
Master storyteller Neil Gaiman narrates this strange tale of saintly murder and the dark history behind the chapel on the island of Iona. The story is brought to life by director Jim Batt with beautifully illustrated paper cutouts, meticulously animated using stop motion techniques and in-camera visual effects. 
ANASTASIA
ANASTASIA
This powerful documentary short spotlights the life of Russian civil rights activist Anastasia Shevchenko as she faces the brutal repercussions of speaking out against her government. Shevchenko endured house arrest for two years, and became the first person found guilty of “organizing activity of an undesirable organization” by a Russian court for her work with the Open Russia movement. Amnesty International declared her a “prisoner of conscience.”
ANGOLA DO YOU HEAR US? VOICES FROM A PLANTATION PRISON
ANGOLA DO YOU HEAR US? VOICES FROM A PLANTATION PRISON
This acclaimed documentary tells the story of playwright Liza Jessie Peterson, whose celebrated play "The Peculiar Patriot" was shut down mid-performance at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, commonly known as Angola Prison. It examines how one woman's play challenged the country's largest plantation prison and impacted the incarcerated men long after the record of her visit was erased by the institution's administration.
MORE THAN I WANT TO REMEMBER
MORE THAN I WANT TO REMEMBER
One night at her home in southeastern Congo, 14-year-old Mugeni awakes to the sounds of bombs. As her family scatters to the surrounding forests to save themselves, Mugeni finds herself completely alone. From there, she sets out on a remarkable solo journey across the globe, determined to reunite with her lost loved ones and lift up the Banyamulenge people.
FAVORITE DAUGHTER
FAVORITE DAUGHTER
An intimate portrait of director Dana Reilly's grandmother Sylvia Weinstock and mother Janet Isa, sheltering in place together in a lower Manhattan apartment during the COVID-19 pandemic. Raw and charming, melancholy and funny—a portrait of two women with vastly different experiences coming together and supporting one another through the uncertainty of spending the next chapters of their lives “alone,” without a partner.
ST. LOUIS SUPERMAN
ST. LOUIS SUPERMAN
2020 Academy Award Nominee for Best Documentary Short Subject. Bruce Franks Jr., a Ferguson activist and battle rapper who was elected to the overwhelmingly white and Republican Missouri House of Representatives, must overcome both personal trauma and political obstacles to pass a bill critical for his community.
COME AND TAKE IT
COME AND TAKE IT
This short documentary film captures the transformation of a young woman to the leadership of America’s most inspired anti-gun violence movement called #CocksNotGlocks. After concealed carry of handguns is legalized on the University of Texas campus, Jessica Jin posts clever humor on social media, and with the help of a tight-knit group of young female students, a movement is born: The Great Texas Dildo Revolt.
UNLADYLIKE2020
UNLADYLIKE2020
Illuminating the stories of extraordinary American heroines from the early years of feminism, Unladylike2020 is an essential series consisting of 26 episodes, between 9 and 12 minutes in length, that profile courageous, little-known and diverse female trailblazers. The series utilizes original artwork and animation, rare archival footage, and interviews with descendants, historians and accomplished modern women who reflect upon the influence of these pioneers.
HYSTERICAL GIRL
HYSTERICAL GIRL
In 1900, Sigmund Freud began treating a 17-year old girl he called "Dora." Her parents brought her to therapy after she accused a family friend of sexual assault. Freud's account of his sessions with Dora was the only major case history he published of a female patient. Intercutting his published text with a scripted version told from Dora's point of view, Hysterical Girl, from the acclaimed director of The Gospel According to André, revisits this landmark case.
IN THE ABSENCE
IN THE ABSENCE
2020 Academy Award Nominee Best Documentary Short Subject. When the passenger ferry MV Sewol sank off the coast of South Korea in 2014, over three hundred people lost their lives, most of them schoolchildren. Years later, the victims’ families and survivors are still demanding justice. This acclaimed documentary combines intimate interviews with archival footage and audio recordings for an investigation into a tragic incident which ultimately led to the impeachment and imprisonment of the country's president.
BARBS WASTELANDS
BARBS WASTELANDS
At the end of the 19th century the peasants in Portugal started a courageous struggle for better work conditions. After generations of starving misery, the Carnation Revolution sowed the promise of an Agrarian Reform. Mostly in the Alentejo region, these rural workers occupied the huge properties where they were once submitted to the power of their Masters. The protagonists of this film, resistants of this struggle, tell their story to the youngsters of today, in their own words.
INFLUENZA
INFLUENZA
From the Academy Award winning director of Parasite, Bong Joon-Ho's Influenza is a startling short film that marks a singular achievement in the filmmaker’s thrilling body of work. Bong's disturbingly humorous film traces the downward spiral of an unemployed 31 year-old man as he is captured on Seoul’s omnipresent CCTVs and cameras. Completed between Memories of Murder and The Host but never before released, it demonstrates a young filmmaker reaching the height of his powers.
SAN VITTORE
SAN VITTORE
Every time children visit their parents at San Vittore, Milan’s oldest prison, they’re subjected to thorough security checks – backpacks searched, toys checked, pat downs, metal detectors, endless waks down bare corridors. Incorporating drawings made by the children while they wait (in some the prison is transformed into a castle, the prisoners into kings and queens), this striking short documentary from Yuri Ancarini  meticulously depicts the lingering psychological and emotional trauma of this process.
ANGRY WHITE MEN: American Masculinity in the Age of Trump
ANGRY WHITE MEN: American Masculinity in the Age of Trump
Based on the acclaimed book by sociologist Michael Kimmel, Angry White Men offers crucial insights into why so many white American male voters seem to be so full of rage and hell-bent on smashing the political order. Drawing on extensive research, Kimmel elucidates the seismic economic, cultural, and political shifts that have transformed the American social landscape.
DISCOVERY IN A PAINTING
DISCOVERY IN A PAINTING
A marvelous exploration of Cezanne's "Still Life with Apples," Leo Hurwitz and Manfred Kirchheimer probe the mysteries of this modern masterpiece by simply observing the work, closely without commentary, focusing on the details - the brushstrokes, abstract shapes, color juxtapositions, hidden images - and in the process, discover its secrets.
UPPLAND
UPPLAND
In the late 1950s, a large American-Swedish company established a mining operation in the remote highlands of Liberia and built a sprawling, modernist city, a “true America,” for its employees and their families. Today, all that remain are abandoned buildings and empty pools. Exactly what happened involves mythical beasts, the environment, the promise of industrialization, and the last remnants of colonialism.
A WOMAN AND HER CAR
A WOMAN AND HER CAR
One day, Lucie decides to write a letter to the man who abused her when she was a young girl. She then takes her camera, her car, and resolves to bring it to him in person. This award-winning short doc was started by Lucie, but finished by her son, Loic, when he discovered the video tape of her journey ten years later.
MACHORKA-MUFF
MACHORKA-MUFF
A powerful, almost surreal distillation of a story by Heinrich Böll, Straub-Huillet's debut work concerns a former Nazi colonel who takes advantage of his political and sexual status in post-war Germany.
THE BRIDEGROOM, THE ACTRESS, AND THE PIMP
THE BRIDEGROOM, THE ACTRESS, AND THE PIMP
Rainer Werner Fassbinder stars alongside his future collaborators — Hanna Scyhgulla, Irm Hermann, and Peer Raben — in this short, radical condensation of Ferdinand Bruckner’s 1926 play Pains of Youth that incorporates the screeds of Mao and May '68 protesters.
EVERY REVOLUTION IS A THROW OF THE DICE
EVERY REVOLUTION IS A THROW OF THE DICE
A recitation of Stéphane Mallarmé’s 1897 poem “A Throw of the Dice Will Never Abolish Chance” alongside the wall where the last 147 men and women of the Paris Commune were shot dead in 1871.
EN RACHÂCHANT
EN RACHÂCHANT
Originally released on a double bill with Eric Rohmer’s Pauline at the Beach, a short about a precocious, determined nine-year-old boy, and a story concerning a rejection of all forms of authority, whether family, school, or nation.
LOTHRINGEN!
LOTHRINGEN!
Straub-Huillet draw upon a pair of novels by Maurice Barrès, a celebrated Alsatian author, extreme nationalist, and ardent anti-Dreyfusard, to tell tales of perfidy, humiliation, and resistance during the German occupation of Alsace-Lorraine between 1870 and 1918.
DOLANDO
DOLANDO
At the end of filming Umiliati, Straub and Huillet gave thanks to the cast and crew in a graceful way: by inviting Dolando Bernardini to sing several stanzas from Torquato Tasso’s 16th-century epic poem Jerusalem Delivered.
INCANTATI
INCANTATI
Based on Women of Messina by Elio Vittorini, Incantanti is an alternate ending to Straub-Huillet's 2003 film Umiliati — fragment as mini-manifesto.
O SOMMA LUCCE
O SOMMA LUCCE
In darkness, we hear a recording of the scandalous 1954 debut performance of Edgar Varèse’s revolutionary Déserts at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. Then, in a different sort of Elysian Field, we hear a recitation of Canto XXXIII from The Inferno.
THE MOTHER
THE MOTHER
In the sun-dappled Tuscan countryside, the boar hunter Meleager, having been murdered by his own mother to avenge the tragic accidental killing of his brother, engages in conversation about fragility, resistance, and love with Hermes, who has taken female form.
CONCERNING VENICE (HISTORY LESSONS)
CONCERNING VENICE (HISTORY LESSONS)
Waters lap gently against the shore as Barbara Ulrich recites Maurice Barrès’s essay about the past glories and tenuous fate of the Most Serene Republic.
DIALOGUE OF SHADOWS
DIALOGUE OF SHADOWS
Straub’s testament of love was made seven years after the 2006 death of his partner and collaborator Danièle Huillet, and nearly 60 years after they met in Paris and planned to adapt this short story by Georges Bernanos, author of Diary of a Country Priest and Mouchette.
THE ALGERIAN WAR!
THE ALGERIAN WAR!
As a young man, Straub fled to West Germany after refusing to fight for France in the Algerian War. Later in his life, he returned to this bitter historical experience with this terse noir about “the instinct to heal” and to murder.
ONE DAY IN ALEPPO
ONE DAY IN ALEPPO
Inspired by questions that followed screenings of Sundance winner Last Men in Aleppo, this short documentary (produced by Last Men director Feras Fayyad) is a portrait of ordinary people's lives as they try to live through a normal day in the besieged city of Aleppo.
SARAH WINCHESTER, PHANTOM OPERA
SARAH WINCHESTER, PHANTOM OPERA
A film about ghosts and madness that is itself a kind of ghost, this short from master Bertrand Bonello (Nocturama, Saint Laurent) tells the story of Sarah Winchester, heiress to the Winchester rifle fortune who was driven to insanity by unseen forces.
AN AVIATION FIELD
AN AVIATION FIELD
The newest work to emerge from Harvard’s groundbreaking Sensory Ethnography Lab, Joana Pimenta’s An Aviation Field is a mesmerizing short film, a ghost story about buried cities, lost civilizations and Western colonialism.
JUKE
JUKE
A remarkable record of black life in the 1940s, as found in the films of Spencer Williams, the pioneering African American filmmaker. A new essay by Thom Andersen, director of Los Angeles Plays Itself.
A TRAIN ARRIVES AT THE STATION
A TRAIN ARRIVES AT THE STATION
Beginning with Ozu's 1936 The Only Son, Thom Andersen's latest cinematic treat, a documentary short, is an anthology of train arrivals, comprising 26 scenes from movies, 1904-2015.
THE 100 YEARS SHOW
THE 100 YEARS SHOW
From Alison Klayman, director of The Brink and Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, the remarkable story of Cuban-American artist Carmen Herrera, a pioneering abstract painter in the '40s and '50s who only found recognition as she approached her 100th birthday.
SYNESTHESIA
SYNESTHESIA
Can one taste a color or see a sound? This fascinating short documentary explores the brain and a neuro-cognitive phenomenon known as synesthesia where multiples senses are blended together.
THE DAY BEFORE THE END
THE DAY BEFORE THE END
A haunting, apocalyptic vision rendered in vivid black & white tableaux, a striking short film from the long-form master, Lav Diaz.
IMPRESSION OF A WAR
IMPRESSION OF A WAR
An artful meditation on Colombia's 70-year civil war--and the culture of violence that pervaded every aspect of society--through the marks, traces and images it left behind.
VICTORY DAY
VICTORY DAY
A courageous, essential portrait of what its like to be gay in Russia today, from Alina Rudnitskaya, one of the country's most important filmmakers. 
TAKE WHAT YOU CAN CARRY
TAKE WHAT YOU CAN CARRY
The first film made outside his native Baltimore, a luminous short film exploring place, character and transition from filmmaker Matt Porterfield (Putty Hill).
STARTING POINT
STARTING POINT
A pilot program in which female prisoners work at a nursing home for the elderly and disabled while serving out their sentences.
SONG OF THE CICADAS
SONG OF THE CICADAS
An evocative short documentary that juxtaposes the solitude and transformation of a political prisoner with the cicada, an insect that spends 17 years underground.
MINERITA
MINERITA
An acclaimed, award winning documentary about the women of a remote mining town in Bolivia where life above ground is just as dangerous as below.