ASK & DISCUSS
INDEXShort Documentaries About Personal Exploration?
3 years, 4 months ago - Ayesha Mittal
Hi all, what are your favourite short personal documentaries? Ones where the filmmaker aims to answer a question about their life or go on a personal exploration?
As a feature-length doc, I love "Stories We Tell" but I'm hoping to watch some short, personal docs as inspiration. I recently watched "For Emergency Use Only" by Daire Collins, but more recs would be amazing.
Thanks!
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3 years, 4 months ago - Jim Read
Hi Ayesha!
One of my personal favourites - How To With John Wilson - https://www.hbo.com/how-to-with-john-wilson
I won't spoil it, but it's a shorts series, where the long and short of it is over the course of numerous years, John had filmed loads of random B-Roll of New York Life... each episode he hones in one aspect (my favourites the scaffolding episode), where he does a real deep dive into one thing, which ends up in loads of weird and whacky self-reflections, ruminations etc.
Defo check it out.
3 years, 4 months ago - Holly Black
I love The Stories We Tell! It's not quite in the same autobiographical vein - but the Painter and The thief has a really interesting look at the ethical lines we can/may cross when dealing with making art: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11296058/ (it's a feature length though) I'm now following this thread :)
3 years, 4 months ago - Michelle Siu
Hey, what comes to mind is Mark Cousins 'The story of looking' it's a book and a film but it's so great about him potentially losing his sight as a filmmaker. It's not a short doc but I recommend it.
If you find any good shorts would you share them as I'm trying to edit something similar at the moment and love these types of narratives. Good luck!
3 years, 4 months ago - Michelle Siu
A Love Song for Latasha (short) is also really good. Not exactly a personal story but the visual aesthetic and poetic way it is told Is worth checking out..
Also About Love is a really compelling doc about a multi generational family but sorry it's not short. But worth seeing. Very personal. https://youtu.be/0kPRG-HNcf4
Not sure if that helps!