One of the many highlights of this Oscar season is watching the films that are nominated in the short subject categories including “The Last Repair Shop” which is recognized for “Outstanding Short Documentary.” The film follows technicians from the Los Angeles Unified School District who fix the broken instruments for the 80,000 students who play them. The district is one of the last in the country to repair instruments for free, something they have been doing since 1959.
Showcasing how intricate and complicated instrument repair can be, the technicians go through an extensive testing process to land the job. Each repairman in the four departments woodwinds, brass, strings and piano shop, credits a love of music and wanting to play an instrument to wanting to repair them.
Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers directed the 40-minute film about a love of music for the technicians and for the students who share what playing an instrument means in their lives.
One technician talks of his love for the violin and his decision to take up the instrument after watching a scene from the 1931 film “Frankenstein” as a young boy. He references a scene in the film where the monster is running from the townsmen out with their pitchforks and he stumbles upon a cabin where a blind man lives. The blind man takes the monster in, gives him tea and The violin playing in that scene always stuck with him and it led him to convince his mother to buy him a $20 violin he found at a flea market.
The film also highlights the struggles that some students face, including not being able to afford the expense of lessons and instrument maintenance, and they thank the schools for the chance to play. It also gives them something to rely on, something that is theirs.
“I love the violin,” the youngest student musician begins in the film’s opening line. “The hardest thing in my life is probably my family’s health. Everybody’s always getting sick back-to-back. ‘Oh, we had to go to the hospital for them…I’ll hear you play in a minute. I just have to get this medicine for them.’ If I didn’t have my violin from school, I don’t know what I would do. Don’t even jinx me with that.”
“This is not just a repair shop,” says the supervisor of the program. “When an instrument breaks, there’s a student without an instrument.” Who knows. It could change their life.
“The Last Repair Shop” is Oscar-nominated in the documentary short category alongside “Nai Nai & Wai Po,” “Island in Between,” “The ABCs of Book Banning,” and “The Barber of Little Rock” with the Academy Awards airing live on Sunday, March 10 on ABC.
“The Last Repair Shop” is currently streaming on Hulu and Disney+.
