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"Allensworth Rising" shines a light on life in a rural, predominantly Black and Latino Central Valley town in California facing generations of systemic neglect. The film connects the town’s history with its ongoing water crisis, revealing how deeply the past shapes the present.

Watch this latest film from the LA Times Short Doc series and see why this town matters. Link in the bio.

🎥 by @ebeledikeneenma_voiceover and @isabellamarzcreates

#shortdocs #seasonfour #latimes #allensworth

Film directors Alejandra Vasquez, Sam Osborn (BACA) and Anika Kan Grevstad (Visible Invisible), along with Los Angeles Times Short Docs senior producer Karen Foshay, judged the CSUN senior thesis projects and celebrated all seven films over the weekend.
@csundocs is often referred to as "The People's Film School" by students and staff. The student films featured at Saturday’s awards ceremony covered a range of topics and told powerful, beautiful and inspirational stories about life in Los Angeles.

Film directors Alejandra Vasquez, Sam Osborn (BACA) and Anika Kan Grevstad (Visible Invisible), along with Los Angeles Times Short Docs senior producer Karen Foshay, judged the CSUN senior thesis projects and celebrated all seven films over the weekend.
@csundocs is often referred to as "The People's Film School" by students and staff. The student films featured at Saturday’s awards ceremony covered a range of topics and told powerful, beautiful and inspirational stories about life in Los Angeles.

Film directors Alejandra Vasquez, Sam Osborn (BACA) and Anika Kan Grevstad (Visible Invisible), along with Los Angeles Times Short Docs senior producer Karen Foshay, judged the CSUN senior thesis projects and celebrated all seven films over the weekend.
@csundocs is often referred to as "The People's Film School" by students and staff. The student films featured at Saturday’s awards ceremony covered a range of topics and told powerful, beautiful and inspirational stories about life in Los Angeles.

Film directors Alejandra Vasquez, Sam Osborn (BACA) and Anika Kan Grevstad (Visible Invisible), along with Los Angeles Times Short Docs senior producer Karen Foshay, judged the CSUN senior thesis projects and celebrated all seven films over the weekend.
@csundocs is often referred to as "The People's Film School" by students and staff. The student films featured at Saturday’s awards ceremony covered a range of topics and told powerful, beautiful and inspirational stories about life in Los Angeles.

Film directors Alejandra Vasquez, Sam Osborn (BACA) and Anika Kan Grevstad (Visible Invisible), along with Los Angeles Times Short Docs senior producer Karen Foshay, judged the CSUN senior thesis projects and celebrated all seven films over the weekend.
@csundocs is often referred to as "The People's Film School" by students and staff. The student films featured at Saturday’s awards ceremony covered a range of topics and told powerful, beautiful and inspirational stories about life in Los Angeles.

Film directors Alejandra Vasquez, Sam Osborn (BACA) and Anika Kan Grevstad (Visible Invisible), along with Los Angeles Times Short Docs senior producer Karen Foshay, judged the CSUN senior thesis projects and celebrated all seven films over the weekend.
@csundocs is often referred to as "The People's Film School" by students and staff. The student films featured at Saturday’s awards ceremony covered a range of topics and told powerful, beautiful and inspirational stories about life in Los Angeles.

Film directors Alejandra Vasquez, Sam Osborn (BACA) and Anika Kan Grevstad (Visible Invisible), along with Los Angeles Times Short Docs senior producer Karen Foshay, judged the CSUN senior thesis projects and celebrated all seven films over the weekend.
@csundocs is often referred to as "The People's Film School" by students and staff. The student films featured at Saturday’s awards ceremony covered a range of topics and told powerful, beautiful and inspirational stories about life in Los Angeles.

Film directors Alejandra Vasquez, Sam Osborn (BACA) and Anika Kan Grevstad (Visible Invisible), along with Los Angeles Times Short Docs senior producer Karen Foshay, judged the CSUN senior thesis projects and celebrated all seven films over the weekend.
@csundocs is often referred to as "The People's Film School" by students and staff. The student films featured at Saturday’s awards ceremony covered a range of topics and told powerful, beautiful and inspirational stories about life in Los Angeles.

"American Seams" — a short doc weaving together the stories of three quilters to reveal an intimate portrait of rural women in the American West — is a nominee for the 46th annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards. 👏 The film was nominated for outstanding lighting direction.

Huge congrats to co-directors Carly and Jared​ Jakins, and the entire team behind this beautiful film​. LA Times Short Docs is proud to support American Seams and thrilled to see it recognized with this Emmy nomination. 🥂🎉👏

@cjakins21 @jared_jakins
📹 Hunter Phillips; @malonemckenna @kelynikegami @farmandfolk
Featured in the​ Documentary: @pieplatepatterns @farmandfolk @navajoms

P​roduction partner @povshorts

In “The First Rain,” Academy Award-winning director Ben Proudfoot and co-director Sam Davis capture on 35mm film the quiet aftermath of the L.A. fires during the first rainfall on Jan 26-27, 2025 — a space for grief, reflection and the beginning of healing for Altadena, the Palisades and all who were affected.

The directors write: “Like a wreath, we lay this film down for those who lost their lives and livelihoods, and the first responders who risked their safety for ours. We do so in our home city’s universal language: 24 frames per second.”

To watch the film and other L.A. Times Short Docs, go to latimes.com/shortdocs

Directed by @samdavis and @benproudfoot
Produced by @breakwaterstudios and @latimesdocs
🎥 @itsmikeray

In a downtown Los Angeles warehouse Sunday night, a few blocks north of the 10 Freeway, an unlikely quartet performed for the first and probably only time in front of a rapt audience.

At the piano, Amanda Nova, a Fairfax High School graduate and freshman at the USC Thornton School of Music. On alto sax, Theodore Roosevelt Senior High School student Ismerai Calcaneo. On violin, Palms Middle School seventh-grader Porche Brinker. And on cello, the most senior member of the group: Yo-Yo Ma.

All four performers played on instruments owned and maintained by the Los Angeles Unified School District. (Yo-Yo Ma’s Stradivarius had the night off.) As the world-renowned cellist took to the improvised stage, Ma spun his borrowed instrument around, revealing a strip of blue tape on which the school-issued instrument’s number was written in black marker.

The ensemble came together at a fundraiser at the facility where about a dozen LAUSD employees maintain and repair the school district’s 130,000 instruments. The repair shop, its staff and the students who played with Yo-Yo Ma on Sunday were featured in the documentary short “The Last Repair Shop.” Co-directed by Ben Proudfoot and composer Kris Bowers (and co-distributed by L.A. Times Studios and Searchlight), the film won an Academy Award for documentary short last year.

Proudfoot said the fundraising campaign has received about 1,330 gifts from individuals in 30 states so far, many of which were small donations of $10 to $25. Together, those donations add up to more than $700,000.

At Sunday’s event, the campaign organizers — who include philanthropist Jerry Kohl and Juilliard President Damian Woetzel — celebrated a $1-million donation from the Chuck Lorre Family Foundation, founded by the veteran TV producer behind “Dharma & Greg,” “Two and a Half Men” and “The Big Bang Theory.” A new sign that reads “The Lorre Family Strings Department” will hang above one section of the shop.

Read more at the link in bio.

📹 Courtesy of Breakwater Studios; @markpottslat

THE FIRST RAIN

A swimming pool black with ash. A staircase to nowhere. A Batchelder tile hearth forever extinguished.

This celluloid record of the first rainfall on Jan. 26, 2025, which continued through Jan. 27, after the Los Angeles fires — painfully too little, too late — is meant as a quiet bed to rest a grieving heart, or for those abroad, a chance to begin to take in what those in Altadena and the Palisades have been through. And while the rain reminds us of tears, it also reminds us of nature’s infinite cycles that persist with or without us.

As we begin to rebuild, and years turn these fresh images into archival ones, perhaps their meaning will transform, too. Perhaps they will begin to feel less like the end of the story and more like the beginning. Like a wreath, we lay this film down for those who lost their lives and livelihoods, and the first responders who risked their safety for ours. We do so in our home city’s universal language: 24 frames per second.

"I did all the protocols I was supposed to do and nothing worked."

Desperate for relief they can’t find at home, two first responders battling PTSD and depression travel to Mexico to undergo psychedelic therapy with traditional healers using medicines
prohibited by U.S. law

"When the Smoke Clears" is the latest film from the @latimesdocs series.

Directed by @_maarya__ and @mkschwarz

Watch the film at the link in the bio.

In the short doc “When the Smoke Clears,” two first responders battling PTSD and depression travel to Mexico for psychedelic therapy using medicines prohibited by U.S. law.

In this Breaking Down a Scene, co-directors Misha Schwarz and Maarya Zafar discuss their approach to filming as the main characters undergo the drug therapies.

Using two cameras — one long lens, the other handheld — they capture the deeply personal moments, uncertain of what would unfold.

Directed by @_maarya__and @mkschwarz
@latimesdocs

Who do first responders turn to in their darkest moments?

Lisa, a retired firefighter and police officer, struggles with isolation and lost purpose. Mike, a former battalion chief, battles sleep deprivation and anger. With traditional treatments for PTSD and depression failing, they seek healing through psychedelic therapy in Mexico.

"When the Smoke Clears," the latest film in the @latimesdocs series, offers an intimate look at their journey, exploring resilience, healing and the power of alternative treatments.

Watch the film at the link in bio.

Directed by @_maarya__ and @mkschwarz

Watching a child learn how to swim is like witnessing a great opera. It’s a tale filled with agony, ecstasy, absurdity, fear, hope, despair, joy, connection and love. Lots and lots of love. The L.A. Times Short Docs' “A Swim Lesson” celebrates the inherent strength and resilience with which we are born into this world. At a time of great division, we felt drawn to Bill and his teaching which is so pure, so profound.

@aswimlesson is shortlisted for the 97th Oscars in the best documentary short film category.

To watch the film, head to https://www.latimes.com/shortdocs

Co-directors @RashidaJones @willmccormack
Producers @emilyarlook @coleemanuele
A co-release with @povshorts @documentaryplus

After witnessing the 1971 oil spill in San Francisco Bay, John Francis was determined to travel across America on foot — and in silence. Meet John and learn about his journey of silent walking in "Planetwalker."

@planetwalkerfilm has been shortlisted for the 97th Oscars in the documentary short film category.

Co-directed by @domgillfilm and @nadiamsgill
Animated by @remyndow
Edited by @harlemsdaughter
Music by @acousticlabs
Watch @latimesdocs
A co-release with @bloomberggreen

🌍 He walked 22 years in silence to save the planet—now his story is Oscar-shortlisted!

Follow the remarkable story of a man who gave up motorized transport and took a vow of silence for 17 years to advocate for environmental justice and a more sustainable future.

Experience this powerful journey of purpose and transformation on the LA Times website: latimes.com/shortdocs 🎥🍿

#Planetwalker #OscarShortlist #LATimes #EnvironmentalJustice

🌍 He walked 22 years in silence to save the planet—now his story is Oscar-shortlisted!

Follow the remarkable story of a man who gave up motorized transport and took a vow of silence for 17 years to advocate for environmental justice and a more sustainable future.

Experience this powerful journey of purpose and transformation on the LA Times website: latimes.com/shortdocs 🎥🍿

#Planetwalker #OscarShortlist #LATimes #EnvironmentalJustice