PBS 2013 Online Film Festival

I recently scanned  through the PBS 2013 Online Film Festival  of short  films  looking  for some documentaries to inspire me , but finding few gems.

Link to online festival

Most all the films  had no dramtic arc to them at all, but were merely descriptions of situations, like a summer camp for Indian kids, or portraits , one of a gay dad  who complains about his prolems with his ex-wire over who will care for their kids.

I don't know if there's something about the short format that automatically eliminates narrative development and drive , or if something has  has happened to today's filmmaker.  but there  were very few strong plots in any of the dozen films I screened

I did discover two well-crafted  films I  can recommend you watch:

The first, titled "Still" is a portrait of  72 year old  underwater photographer Carlos Eyles. It is beautifully shot by cinemaphotographer Tom Lyons. Some of his scenes of  Eyles swimming with turtles  and and dolphins are simply mesmerizing and the film with Eyles narrating is well put  together by a quartet  of producers -- Michael  Bath, Jose Tadeu Bijos, Pasqual Gutierre  and Ruby Stocking.

The other film I reccomend  is called  "Noc Na Tenecku", ( Night at the Dance) a short documentary about one of the last Czech dance halls in Texas.  Set in the tiny central Texas berg of Seaton, population 40, (it's located about halfway between San Antonio and Dallas), the film profiles Alice Sefcik Sulak,  the dance hall owner and  some old timers who still enjoy the dances at the Sefcik Dance Hall,  established in 1923.

There are a bunch of poignant moments sprinkled throughout the film -- a couple describes  how they danced  at the hall as teenagers  and then met there again after both were widowed;  a woman shows us  her her gold dancing shoes, but confesses she is sometime a wallflower at the dances;  another elderly woman  takes us to her husband's  gravestone near the dance hall to tell us she regerts not being able to dance the polka with Arthur any more,  and in the the film's final scene , Alice, the arthritic owner of the dance hall walks slow;y across  the now empty darkened dance floor,  slips a dollar bill in the jukebox and sings along with the song she has selected ,  singing perhaps to her now departed husband or maybe some never forgotten beau:

                                Henry, you have left me
                                Although you'll never leave my mind
                                I try and try to forget the night
                                You promised to be my sweetheart
                                 Now you have left me memories
                                 Although we are apart
                                 Never forget that you will regret
                                The promise you broke , sweetheart.

The film is artfully directed by Annie Silverstein, a young  Austin filmmaker.  From the looks of this film, she has a bright future.

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