{"id":24540,"date":"2024-03-23T16:03:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-23T20:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=24540"},"modified":"2024-03-24T16:23:59","modified_gmt":"2024-03-24T20:23:59","slug":"last-repair-shop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2024\/03\/23\/last-repair-shop\/","title":{"rendered":"Oscar-Winning Documentary \u2018Last Repair Shop\u2019: Repairing Instruments To Make People Whole Again"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>\u201cThe Last Repair Shop\u201d is an astonishing, tender, heartbreaking, inspiring look behind the scenes at the expertise and love that the craftspeople of the instrument repair shop for the Los Angeles Unified School District put into keeping more than 80,000 musical instruments working for kids in the city\u2019s public schools. The school district, the documentary says, \u201cprovides freely repaired musical instruments to students, one of the last in America to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 40-minute film deservedly won the Academy Award for best documentary short film on March 10. It was directed by Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers of Los Angeles\u2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/breakwaterstudios.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Breakwater Studios<\/a>, which also won a 2022 Oscar for the documentary short \u201cThe Queen of Basketball.\u201d Proudfoot and his team profess a \u201chumanist\u201d approach to their films that fill in gaps in the stories we tell of our history and get at the great meaning in often unheralded lives.<\/p>\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xttrkgKXtZ4?si=hYhnViKyM3fAuh81\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe Last Repair Shop\u201d tells a story of refugees\u2014from poverty that leaves a Mexican immigrant single mom unable to buy her kids gifts for Christmas, from anti-Armenian violence In the crumbling Soviet Union, from homophobia that convinces you that you can\u2019t be who you are. They find refuge and transcendence in music\u2014and in the sustaining work of the repair shop in a nondescript warehouse in the heart of Los Angeles where their repairs pass on the gift of music to the next generation. Repairing instruments becomes a metaphor for making people whole again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s a certain safety, I think, in that shop,\u201d Proudfoot tells me. \u201cThere\u2019s a mutual safety. They\u2019ve found each other. They found a place where they can help themselves, but also help others.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe Last Repair Shop\u201d is a film about a community that values the arts, a community where art is its identity as well as big business (Los Angeles is the \u201crecording capitol of the world,\u201d the film says), a community that understands that art is also food, that art is medicine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis is not just a musical instrument repair shop,\u201d one of the craftspeople, Steve Bagmanyan, says. \u201cWhen an instrument breaks there is a student without an instrument. No, no, no. Not in our city.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><strong>Related:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2024\/03\/24\/proudfoot\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Director Ben Proudfoot Discusses Technique Behind Oscar-Winning \u2018Last Repair Shop\u2019<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><em>If this is the kind of coverage of arts, cultures and activisms you appreciate, please support Wonderland by&nbsp;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/wonderlandlandfanclub\" target=\"_blank\">contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And&nbsp;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/subscribe\/\" target=\"_blank\">sign up for our free, occasional newsletter<\/a>&nbsp;so that you don&#8217;t miss any of our reporting. (All content \u00a9Greg Cook 2024 or the respective creato<\/em>rs.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1170\" height=\"490\" src=\"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/THE-LAST-REPAIR-SHOP_STILL_11w.jpg\" alt=\"From \u201cThe Last Repair Shop.&quot; (Courtesy of Breakwater Studios)\" class=\"wp-image-24579\" srcset=\"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/THE-LAST-REPAIR-SHOP_STILL_11w.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/THE-LAST-REPAIR-SHOP_STILL_11w-768x322.jpg 768w, https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/THE-LAST-REPAIR-SHOP_STILL_11w-370x155.jpg 370w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1170px) 100vw, 1170px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">From \u201cThe Last Repair Shop.&#8221; (Courtesy of Breakwater Studios)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1170\" height=\"490\" src=\"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/THE-LAST-REPAIR-SHOP_STILL_17w.jpg\" alt=\"From \u201cThe Last Repair Shop.&quot; (Courtesy of Breakwater Studios)\" class=\"wp-image-24578\" srcset=\"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/THE-LAST-REPAIR-SHOP_STILL_17w.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/THE-LAST-REPAIR-SHOP_STILL_17w-768x322.jpg 768w, https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/THE-LAST-REPAIR-SHOP_STILL_17w-370x155.jpg 370w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1170px) 100vw, 1170px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">From \u201cThe Last Repair Shop.&#8221; (Courtesy of Breakwater Studios)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThe Last Repair Shop\u201d is an astonishing, tender, heartbreaking, inspiring look behind the scenes at the expertise and love that the craftspeople of the instrument repair shop for the Los Angeles Unified School District put into keeping more than 80,000 musical instruments working for kids in the city\u2019s public schools. The school district, the documentary [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24581,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[129,116,101],"tags":[1234,1235],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24540"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24540"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24591,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24540\/revisions\/24591"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}