A love letter to independent journalists and the readers who support them, Storm Lake makes those of us in the profession proud of our life choices while simultaneously lighting a fire under our collective asses to persevere and work harder. This look at a year in the life of northwest Iowa’s Pulitzer-winning Storm Lake Times captures the owning/operating Cullen family and their handful of employees in the newsroom and at home, doing their best to weather challenges that have killed numerous industry peers in recent years. Every second with the paper’s Mark Twain-like editor Art is a joy, and his wife Dolores and their son Tom are likewise charming, but beyond providing entertainment and encouraging advocacy, a core message remains elusive. Directors Jerry Risius and Beth Levison arguably commit to their fly-on-the-wall approach to a fault, and, while necessary to address recent complications, the Zoom-aided COVID coda feels overly disjointed from the preceding 70+ minutes’ terrific flow. Grade: B-plus —Edwin Arnaudin

The elegant chambers of a funeral home and crematorium in Sweden are the setting for Meanwhile on Earth, which is less a documentary than a beautiful series of tableaux taking viewers behind the scenes of the death industry. Director Carl Olsson sets up his camera at some distance and lets it run as workers wheel around coffins, arrange flowers, practice music, embalm and store bodies, and dig graves, all the while chatting about banalities. (Additional, rather insensitive clips depict evidently unhappy elderly people at home, seemingly just waiting to become customers.) Any information imparted — and there's not much — is incidental to the imagery, which is at first striking then gradually repetitive and frustrating in its lack of context or explanation. A saving grace is the frequent appearance of two chummy body transport workers as they drive around talking about pets, food, and vacations, a nascent comic duo who are amusing without ever getting to the punchline. Grade: C —Bruce Steele

In the spring of 2020, the residents of an East London high-rise attracted the watchful eye of director and lone cameraman Peiman Zekavat. Beginning on day one of the coronavirus lockdown, Zekavat became the ultimate voyeur, painstakingly documenting the routines and eventual shift of everyday life. The resulting short, E14, contains a handful of interesting observations about how the general public deals with the boredom and monotony of staying home, but it turns out that spying on your neighbors is not nearly as fun and mysterious as it looks on TV. What could have been a fascinating study in human behavior is instead hampered by tedious reflections and laughable, completely unnecessary, Attenborough-like narration. Grade: C —Joel Winstead

The Doll is a surprisingly nimble documentary short with tremendous revelations and insight into its subjects, yet also one slightly burdened by the often frustrating and uninteresting “talking heads” format that plagues many non-fiction films. Director Elahe Esmaili deserves immense credit for putting together a work that deals with rather heavy subject matter — that of an underage girl finding a marriage suitor — and filtering it through the POV of the girl’s father. This perspective allows the doc to touch on aspects of the situation that might not be expected and even contains some surprising moments of levity as we see the family’s bafflement with the impending marriage. 

As the film goes on, however, many dark, personal traumas are unearthed that render the situation less black and white than the viewer might expect. Sadly, though, I think the short begins to get rather stale over the course of its 35 minute runtime due to Esmaili rarely attempting to get footage from outside the stuffy bedrooms and studio spaces in which the subjects are interviewed. Seeing the young daughter and her suitor out in the world more often than just hearing about it might have made for a more complete viewing experience. Grade: B —Josh McCormack

The Rifleman, Sierra Pettengill’s short portrait of insidious NRA transformer Harlon Carter, ably and impressively tells how the organization went from a hunting and sporting organization to…something else. Though it no doubt chronicles an important subject, the film’s near complete reliance on archival footage, audio, and newsprint clippings results in a somewhat dry presentation, one further hampered by an excess of onscreen text. Grade: B-minus —EA

Providing glimpses into the work that a wildlife care center in Washington state does on a daily basis, Elizabeth Lo’s short American Wildlife highlights the emergency care of the backyard creatures we all see and take for granted. Weasels, raccoons, bats, crows, and squirrels all make appearances, having fallen victim to human interference and house cats. But while witnessing these familiar animals in peril will tug on certain viewers’ heartstrings, and in turn boost attention regarding the nearly 3,000 patients the facility treats every year, the series of B&W vignettes carries little other weight, resulting in a largely forgettable experience. Grade: C-plus —JW

(Photos courtesy of Full Frame)