Shorts Competition Program 5: Docu-Nation

Running time: 102 mins

In recent years, the short documentary has been enhanced by vast improvements in cameras, image quality and portability. One person can be a film crew and there's never a shortage of subjects out in the world to cover. Docu-Nation samples the best short docs out today.

A film clip of a WW II plane crash sets off a high tech search to identify and locate the surviving pilot. Then, from Bolivia, comes a highly enlightening look at a group of indigenous women who provide the village entertainment by wrestling. The highly charged world of freelance video cameramen is examined as they race to get their footage on the air. Finally, a return to Chernobyl 20 years later reveals a landscape still struggling to heal, offering not just an elegy for the victims, but for the whole Soviet system.

The Fighting Cholitas - dirs. Mariam Jobrani, Kenny Krauss and Teresa Deskins
Half Life: A Journey to Chernobyl - dir. David Bickerstaff and Phil Grabsky
A Prayer for Area 23 - dir. John Alberts
Relative Freedom - dir. Joe Kuehne
Spitfire 944 - dir. William Lorton
Stringers - dirs. Don R. Lewis and John Beck