At this year’s Melbourne Documentary Film Festival, the short documentary category is anything but small. With 9 dedicated Shorts Sessions and shorts screening alongside many of the features at Cinema Nova, viewers will discover the immense potency of of concise storytelling, proving you don’t need hours to be moved, informed, or inspired.
In just a few minutes, these expertly crafted shorts pack emotional punches and offer fresh perspectives on everything from grassroots activism and environmental justice to cultural traditions and personal resilience. Whether you’re a seasoned shorts watcher or just discovering the format, this festival’s vibrant collection reminds us that when done right, a short documentary can leave an unforgettable impact.
Below are reviews of five shorts you’ll want to add to your must-see list.
“How to Sue the Klan” directed by John Beder
“How to Sue the Klan” is a concise yet powerful short documentary that revisits one of the most remarkable legal battles in American civil rights history. At its heart is Beulah Mae Donald, a grieving mother whose quiet strength led to a groundbreaking lawsuit against the Ku Klux Klan after the lynching of her son, Michael, in 1981. With a sharp narrative focus and emotional depth, the film reveals how a single act of courage, backed by a determined legal team, forced a white supremacist organization to reckon with its violence in a court of law.
The storytelling is unflinching and intimate, drawing viewers into a world where justice is not guaranteed but relentlessly pursued. Archival news footage and measured interviews weave together a narrative that feels both historic and heartbreakingly current. There’s a palpable sense of dignity throughout the film. It doesn’t sensationalize, but instead offers a respectful portrait of a mother’s resolve and the strategic brilliance behind one of the most consequential civil lawsuits of the era.
Though brief in length, “How to Sue the Klan” carries the emotional weight and educational heft of a feature documentary. It serves as a reminder of what collective action and individual courage can achieve, even in the face of deeply entrenched hate. For those seeking stories that illuminate the ongoing fight for racial justice in America, this documentary is essential viewing. It is timely, sobering, and ultimately empowering.
“How to Sue the Klan” screens July 20th. Tickets: here.
“Midnight Milonga” directed by Guy Wilkinson
“Midnight Milonga” is a lyrical and lovingly crafted short documentary that invites viewers into Melbourne’s passionate and tight-knit tango community. Directed by Guy Wilkinson, the film serves as a kind of love letter, not just to the dance itself, but to the people who find meaning, solace, and connection through its embrace. With a sensitive eye and a deep respect for his subjects, Wilkinson captures the rhythms of a subculture that pulses vibrantly beneath the surface of the city.
Through intimate interviews with local dancers, “Midnight Milonga” explores why tango holds such power. The dancers speak with disarming honesty about the vulnerability and trust tango demands. How it becomes less about performance and more about presence and connection. Their reflections reveal a dance that is both intensely personal and inherently communal, rooted in tradition yet constantly evolving within the unique texture of Melbourne.
Visually, the film is as graceful as the dance it honors. Daylight spills into practice spaces, shoes glide across wooden floors, and the music—soft, aching, alive—carries it all forward. It’s a tender, understated film that leaves a lasting impression. It is an ode to movement, to connection, and to the quiet beauty of finding one’s rhythm.
After watching the film, who wouldn’t want to tango?
An enchanting gem, “Midnight Milonga” invites viewers to consider what passions might be waiting just beyond their own comfort zones.
“Midnight Milonga” screens July 27th. Tickets: here.
“Six Strings Up” directed by Guy Wilkinson
Is there anything cooler than someone who can play guitar? Someone with a good story as to how the guitar changed their life.
In “Six Strings Up,” director Guy Wilkinson takes viewers into the world of Jeb Cardwell, an Australian musician whose deep connection to the guitar becomes both a personal lifeline and a means of creative expression. More than just a musical instrument, the guitar becomes a central character in Cardwell’s journey, one that has offered him direction, purpose, and ultimately a way to live a life centered around creativity and music.
What makes the documentary so compelling is its dual focus on Cardwell’s evolution as a musician and also his work as guitar technician at his shop, Melbourne Guitar Repair. Wilkinson captures the intimacy of this work with a poetic touch featuring close-ups of Cardwell tuning and restoring guitars with as much reverence as the footage of him performing. This added layer deepens the story, showing how Cardwell’s relationship with the guitar extends beyond the stage, grounding his passion in daily labor and devotion.
At 12 minutes long, the film unfolds like a meaningful conversation between old friends. The result is a beautiful short that feels less like a biography and more like a shared moment. One that reminds us of the powerful ways music can anchor a soul and set it free.
With gentle pacing and beautiful cinematography, Wilkinson allows viewers to sit with the story and feel the quiet power of someone who’s found both expression and livelihood through six strings and a lot of heart.
“Six Strings Up” screens July 18th. Tickets: here.
“Waska: The Forest Is My Family” directed by Nina Gualinga, Boloh Miranda Izquierdo, and Eli Virkina
A stunning and profoundly moving documentary is “Waska: The Forest Is My Family” directed by Nina Gualinga, Boloh Miranda Izquierdo, and Eli Virkina. The short explores the sacred relationship between the Kichwa people of Sarayaku and their Amazonian homeland. Told through the personal perspective of Gualinga, a young Indigenous leader and environmental activist, the film brings viewers into a world where the forest is not a resource but a relative—living, breathing, and essential.
Central to the story is the traditional use of waska (ayahuasca), a sacred plant medicine that has long been used for spiritual and communal healing but is increasingly co-opted by outsiders seeking personal enlightenment at the expense of Indigenous culture.
Through its careful cinematography and layered soundscape, the film immerses audiences in the rhythm of the forest. Its magnificent stillness, its song, and its spirit. Gualinga’s narration, paired with evocative imagery of her homeland, creates a deeply intimate experience that honors both her family lineage and the broader community’s spiritual traditions. Rather than romanticize the setting, the filmmakers choose to highlight the complex threats facing Sarayaku, including cultural appropriation, extractive industries, and environmental degradation. Still, the tone remains one of strength and resistance, underscoring the community’s unwavering belief in the “living forest” as a source of life and wisdom.
“Waska: The Forest Is My Family” achieves something rare for a film of its length. It invites viewers not only to witness but to reckon. With clarity and compassion, the film calls attention to the enduring impacts of colonialism while celebrating the resilience of Indigenous identity and knowledge. Gualinga’s voice is more than her own, it’s collective, echoing generations of caretakers and visionaries. The result is not merely a film, but a woven thread of story and spirit, one that binds land to language, memory to future, and heart to forest.
See “Waska: The Forest Is My Family” screening July 27th. Tickets: here.
“Returning Our Ancestors” directed by Michael Woods
“Returning Our Ancestors” is an emotional short documentary that confronts the historical injustices inflicted upon Aboriginal peoples through the removal and display of their ancestors’ remains. With great care and cultural sensitivity, the film sheds light on the repatriation efforts led by Indigenous communities seeking to bring their ancestors home from museums, universities, and private collections around the world. Through personal testimonies, archival images, and scenes of ceremony and return, the film not only reveals the pain of desecration but also the profound spiritual and cultural importance of restoration.
The documentary succeeds in balancing the weight of historical wrongdoing with the resilience of the communities working to right those wrongs. Without dramatization, it exposes the indignity of past practices that treated human remains as curiosities, while elevating the ceremonies and protocols involved in bringing ancestors home. These moments, quietly filmed and respectfully presented, are filled with a sense of reverence that transcends the screen. As family members speak about the trauma of knowing their ancestors were taken and the healing that comes from their return, viewers are invited to grapple with a history that is not distant but ongoing.
“Returning Our Ancestors” is not a film of easy resolution, nor does it aim to be. It invites viewers to reckon with the past not as something gone, but as something still living in the present, still asking to be acknowledged and made right. What lingers most is the understanding that returning ancestors to their rightful place is not only an act of justice, but of love—a sacred restoration of story, spirit, and belonging. In the hush of ceremony, in the red earth cradling bone, the film reminds us that some journeys home are centuries long, but every step forward carries the memory of those who were never forgotten.
“Returning Our Ancestors” screens July 23rd.Tickets: here.
For more information on the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival, visit: mdff.org.au.
