REVIEW: Oscar nominated documentary shorts ‘Instruments of a Beating Heart,’ ‘Death by Numbers’ and ‘I am Ready, Warden’ at Coolidge Corner Theatre for a limited time
The repercussions of two horrific and devastating crimes and a quiet lesson in discipline are just a few of the 2025 documentary shorts nominated for the 97th annual Academy Awards which took place on Sunday, March 2. All of these shorts are available online and now playing at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, Massachusetts through Thursday, March 6. Click here for more information and for tickets.
Please note that this review does not include Netflix’s The Only Girl in the Orchestra who took home Best Documentary Short or the New Yorker’s Oscar nominated documentary short Incident.
A beautifully engaging documentary from the start, Ema Ryan Yamazaki’s 23 minute Japanese short film Instruments of a Beating Heart, presented by Op-Docs, is a tender and endearing piece about an audition held for first graders for a part in a musical performance Ode to Joy in Tokyo 2022. The film’s cinematography is bright and inviting offering an inside look at these adorable, excitable and impressionable children learning about discipline amid competition. Their teacher is wise and firm with the students to help them grow. The film specifically focuses on intimidated Ayame who longs to play a particular instrument in the performance. The hidden meaning behind the title will not revealed here, but it is worth seeing this wonderful and tender film.
“Forever will always be yesterday.”
The classroom frozen in time, the warning signs and so much more encapsulate Parkland School horrific school shooting.
Written by Sam Fuentes and directed by Kim A Snyder, Death by Numbers dives deep inside case #26 from the perspective of traumatized survivor Sam Fuentes and the nature of what it is to live through this unimaginable loss.
The numbers represent not only the facts of the case, but what they know about the shooter through evidence of his mindset and sticks to Sam’s exclusive outlook on the case while tracing a fraction of her long and incalculable road to healing.
Death by Numbers also examines the unimaginable loss, guilt, forgiveness, grief, death, and mortality as well as an agonizing and riveting encounter with the shooter. It is a unique and chilling film that is humanized by Sam’s dynamic perspective.
In 2022, Texas Inmate John Henry Ramirez counts down the days until his execution after being convicted of the murder of Pablo Castro in 2004.
MTV Documentary Films presents I am Ready, Warden, a stirring 37 minute documentary set in Livingston, Texas that impressively covers just about every perspective of this heinous and unplanned act, its aftermath, and a snapshot into Ramirez’s background. It is mainly told from Ramirez’s perspective, but contains interviews with the godmother who supported Ramirez when his family left, the victim’s family, Ramirez’s son born when Ramirez was on the run, and takes a deeper look at Texas’s death penalty. I am Ready, Warden also examines the complicated emotions of everyone involved in this case including what results when Ramirez tries to reach out to the victim’s son, Aaron.
All of these shorts are available online and now playing at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, Massachusetts through Thursday, March 6. Click here for more information and for tickets.
