Life Is a Progress
Short Documentaries from doxita
Curator Karen Cirillo in attendance
$7 non-members, Aurora Members Free

"Life is a progress, and not a station," said Ralph Waldo Emerson. Life ebbs and flows with change. There are hurdles that must be scaled and personal character is built through adversity. People adapt their behavior to get through everything from war to displacement to growing up. The four films featured in this year's doxita program capture stories of peoples survival and their ways to cope with self-preservation.  
These are the films in the 3rd annual doxita:  

Steel Homes (UK, Eva Weber, 10 min.) - Storage lockers provide a holding ground for memories of long-gone loved ones and dreams that still live. Striking cinematography and sound evoke the minds and personal spaces of average people. 

Slaves (Sweden, Hannah Heilborn and David Aronowitsch, 15 min.) Colorful animation brings alive the tale of two Sudanese youth who were captured for slavery. The animation and documentary interview technique mask the childrens identity while also creating an engrossing story of survival.  

The First Kid to Learn English From Mexico (USA, Peter Jordan, 20 min.) - 9-year-old Pedro Lopez wishes he never left Mexico. Lush camera and music create this almost-surreal, yet honest and charming portrait of this struggling boy.  

12 Notes Down (Denmark, Andreas Koefed, 30 min.) Jorgis is the star of his boys choir, until the onset of puberty affects what he loves most: his ability to sing. This beautifully tender portrait follows the journey of a young man facing the need to leave his old identity behind.  

doxita is a traveling festival of documentary films that are under 40 minutes in length.  The program represents a wide variety of documentary – domestic and foreign, super-short and longer format, serious and funny.  It is designed to profile the great content and artistic vision that non-fiction short films provide, but that people don’t often get a chance to see.  

Karen Cirillo is a documentary programmer and founder of doxita. She is the owner of Docuphile Media, LLC, which specializes in programming, consulting and producing non-fiction film and video. Cirillo spent four years as Festival Coordinator and Associate Director - Programming at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. She is the Shorts Programmer for the True/False Film Festival. She reviews films and festivals for various publications, including DOX Magazine and indieWIRE.