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Academy Awards 2024: The Last Repair Shop Wins The Oscar For Best Documentary Short Film
The Last Repair Shop, which spotlights the technicians maintaining student instruments in the L.A. Unified School District, won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.
The Last Repair Shop, a documentary short film directed by Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers, won the Oscars for the Best Documentary Short Film, for its heartwarming story about four master craftspeople who service musical instruments for Los Angeles Unified School District students. The film, co-distributed by L.A. Times Studios and Searchlight, showcases the largest remaining workshop of its kind in America, ensuring that schoolchildren have playable instruments every day.
The Last Repair Shop wins Best Documentary Short Film
Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers won the Oscar for Best Documentary Short for their film, The Last Repair Shop. For the second time in the last three years, the Oscar for Best Documentary Short has been claimed by Proudfoot. The film tells the story of Los Angeles craftspeople who maintain 80,000 musical instruments for public school students, making it the only big city school system to offer free instruments to students.
Bowers, a gifted pianist and leading Hollywood composer attended L.A. Unified School District schools growing up and developed his talent on pianos maintained by one of the technicians profiled in the film.
"The Last Repair Shop is about the heroes in our schools who often go unsung, unthanked, and unseen,” Bowers said from the stage while accepting the award. He added, “Tonight, you are sung, you are thanked, and you are seen.”
"John Williams inspired me to become a composer,” Bowers noted. “He went to L.A. Public Schools. I went to LA Public Schools. This is Porché Brinker. She’s 12 years old. She’s playing violin in L.A. public schools. She looks amazing tonight.”
Bowers continued, “L.A. is one of the last cities in America to give public school students free and freely prepared instruments. We need to fix that because music education isn’t just about creating incredible musicians. It’s about creating incredible humans.”
About The Last Repair Shop
The Last Repair Shop is a 2023 American short documentary film directed by Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers. Produced by Breakwater Studios, the film premiered on September 1, 2023 at the 50th Telluride Film Festival. The film was made available for streaming on YouTube and the Los Angeles Times website on November 8, 2023.
The film had its world premiere on September 1, 2023 at the 50th Telluride Film Festival in the 'Main Slate: Episodic Form and Short Form' section.[8] On September 24, it won Best Documentary Short Film at the 2023 Calgary International Film Festival.
It was screened at the Middleburg Film Festival in October 2023. In October 2023, Searchlight Pictures and L.A. Times Studios acquired the film and made it available for free on the Los Angeles Times YouTube channel and website on November 8, 2023 and on Disney+ and other related platforms worldwide on January 23, 2024.
November 12, 2023, the film won the 8th Critics' Choice Documentary Awards. It was the first film from L.A. Times Studios to win and be nominated. On February 16, 2024, the film was screened on more than 700 screens in the U.S. and Canada as part of ShortsTV’s 19th Annual Oscar Nominated Short Films theatrical release.
The film aired on American Broadcasting Company owned television stations and select affiliates on February 17, 2024. It is the first Oscar-nominated short film to air on television.
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