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Like many picturesque islands in New England, Block Island in the state of Rhode Island was once powered by fishing, but has come to be known as a venue for vast wealth and summer tourism. However, as the short film Small Hours (2022) captures, it’s still the working class that keeps life there afloat. The US director Charlie Weber’s film is akin to flipping through a photo-book focused on the experience of the hotel employees, restaurant servers and trail guides who make the island their seasonal home. Drifting between scenes featuring mostly young or foreign-born workers, and interspersed with images of old postcards, Weber’s free-flowing film draws out the motivations, pastimes and personalities of the people who make the laid-back island experience possible.
Via NoBudge
Director: Charlie Weber
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Nature and landscape
California’s landscapes provide endless inspiration for a woodcut printmaker
10 minutes
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Love and friendship
Never marry a man you love too much, and other views on romance in Sierra Leone
5 minutes
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Engineering
Can monumental ‘ice stupas’ help remote Himalayan villages survive?
15 minutes
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Virtues and vices
Why Bennie tried to disappear, and what happened when he was found decades later
16 minutes
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History of technology
Curious singles and tech sceptics – what ‘computer dating’ looked like in 1966
6 minutes
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Cognition and intelligence
A father forgets his child’s name for the first time in this poetic reflection on memory
4 minutes
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Animals and humans
Join seabirds as they migrate, encountering human communities along the way
13 minutes
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Stories and literature
Two variants of a Hindu myth come alive in an animated ode to Indian storytelling
14 minutes
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Technology and the self
The commodified childhood – scenes from two sisters’ lives in the creator economy
14 minutes