Prior to the announcement of the last nominations on January 24, “The Last Repair Shop,” a short documentary from “The Times,” will make it to the second round of Oscar voting. For the 96th Academy Awards, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences displayed the shortlists for ten categories: live-action short film, sound and visual effects, a documentary feature film, international, animated, short animation, makeup and hairstyling, song, and score.
The L.A. Times Studios and Searchlight Pictures co-production, co-directed by composer and pianist Kris Bowers and Canadian filmmaker 2022 Oscar winner Ben Proudfoot, centres on a quartet of master artisans who restore damaged musical instruments, giving them new life for students in the Los Angeles Unified School District.
The Last Repair Shop: Story Line
According to Bowers, “The Last Repair Shop” is a love letter to his hometown. Its evidence of realizing something is flawed but still managing to fix it. It also pays homage to those who work tirelessly—and usually without recognition—to ensure that the following generation develops in harmony.
Under the direction of the attractive general manager, Steve Bagmanyan, who suffered ethnic persecution in Azerbaijan in the 1980s, the film chronicles the tale of four dedicated artists who work to maintain over 80,000 student musical instruments in good condition throughout the city of Los Angeles. The film combines moving first-person narratives from the actual student musicians whose instruments made all the difference with the surprisingly personal and intimate histories of the repair people.
The Los Angeles Times’ YouTube channel offers “The Last Repair Shop” for viewing online.
For the short documentary “The Queen of Basketball,” which followed Olympian Lusia “Lucy” Harris—the first female NBA draft pick—Proudfoot was awarded an Oscar. Alongside Bowers, he received a nomination for their 2020 short documentary, “A Concerto Is a Conversation.”
Their most recent short documentary, which made its premiere in November, was nominated for both the Critics’ Choice Awards’ short documentary and score categories. It took home the former last month. Of the 114 movies that qualified for the category, “The Last Repair Shop” was one.
The list of movies is:
- The ABCs of Book Banning”
- “The Barber of Little Rock”
- “Bear”
- “Between Earth & Sky”
- “Black Girls Play: The Story of Hand Games”
- “Camp Courage”
- “Deciding Vote”
- “How We Get Free”
- “If Dreams Were Lightning: Rural Healthcare Crisis”
- “Island in Between”
- “Last Song From Kabul”
- “Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó”
- “Oasis”
- “Wings of Dust”
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