Loading Docs is a unique launchpad for local documentaries that are only three minute long. It’s a programme that also helps to nurture and promote Kiwi filmmaking talent. This month in the Show Me Shorts Screening Room, writer Tim Lambourne showcases three of the best new Loadings docs films.
I often find myself engaging in a particularly self-destructive mode of internet browsing that I have termed ‘hate-watching’. I read or watch or listen to things that aren’t very good, and I get angry that the care and attention and thought that should go into creating something worthy of sharing, hasn’t been applied.
Thankfully, watching these three short documentaries was the exact opposite experience. It was inspiring and uplifting and reminded me that even though we, and by we I mean the internet, have created a world that proliferates shorter and shorter content, that quality, and thought, and care can still be the modus operandi if we want it to be.
The following three Loading Docs documentaries highlight people who are bringing that care and enthusiasm and passion to their own world of wonder. Be it wine, dancing or whatever you call the stupendous inventions in Fantasy Cave.
Fantasy Cave
A couple of years ago I was travelling through South East Asia and Hong Kong. By chance a friend of a friend reached out to say he would be in HK around the same time. When we met up for a beer we hugged. It caught me by surprise, how good it felt to catch up with a dude I didn’t know that well.
Knowing that my uniquely Kiwi eccentricities would be not only understood but also enjoyed and reciprocated by my ‘mate of a mate’ over the next few weeks was incredibly comforting.
I felt a similar feeling watching Fantasy Cave, a short documentary about a group of elderly folk who are self proclaimed ‘builders and tinkerers’ that share their creations with their community. Watching this doco away from the homeland, in a very foreign environment and culture, I found myself instantly connecting with the tone.
There is a beautiful little moment during a meeting of Fantasy Cave’s protagonists where they are discussing the recent spate of ‘lights being left on’ overnight that brought a particularly warm smile to my face.
Kusuda
There’s a heartbreaking quality to Hiro Kusuda, a Japanese winemaker who battles the harsh New Zealand elements to create wine he can be proud of.
Henry Oliver and Amber Easby’s ability to connect Hiro’s inherent Japanese-ness: his quest for quality and perfection, his understanding of the fragility of life and how well that translates to a life of a grape grower, felt effortless and also beautiful.
Hiro is thoughtful and considered, but it’s clear he battles not just the weather but also himself. Even after a successful harvest, he still dreams of the work that needs to be done.
Dancing in the Dark
Dancing in the Dark follows Peter Vosper who finds himself most when he isn’t himself. But rather a cataclysm of Neon and LED lights. A Daft Punk looking creation he made himself that he uses to entertain strangers on Auckland’s streets with his impressive lights and dance moves.
Vosper’s lights and moves also find him involved in a community of like minded people who regularly gather to dance in the dark at the No Lights No Lycra events. The transformation they undergo is captured beautifully by director Rowena Baines. Like Fantasy Cave, Vosper is a DOP’s dream, and just like Fantasy Cave, I was not disappointed.
Whether you’re watching these short documentaries in a random dive bar in the middle of middle-America, or one hundred metres from the Fantasy Cave, these stories remind us that we aren’t that different, that if we want to be we are endlessly connected.
Make sure to check out more docs at loadingdocs.net. The 2015 films (all available to watch) include:
Madness Made Me – A doc that asks: who understands madness more? The psychiatric files or the patient?
Tihei – A brief biopic on a young autistic man with a huge talent for freestyle, rapping for strangers in the Otara Markets.
Gina – A powerful piece on a woman suffering a rare and extremely debilitating genetic disorder.
Conversations with Pets – A doc on Faye Rogers, a world-renowned animal lover who converses with pets.
Please Open – A 3-minute ode to the glorious Crystal Palace. An ode that may soon become a eulogy…
Waihorotiu – An examination of the natural waterway that once flowed through Auckland. It’s now called Queen Street.
Wilbur Force – A former pro-wrestling king is pushed to reclaim glory by his documentary filmmaking buddy.
Watch more Show Me Shorts films here.
