The LAST REPAIR SHOP-Takes Home Oscar Gold

For those who watched this year's Oscars, the Oscar for best short documentary went to The LAST REPAIR SHOP. Walking up to accept the award with the movie's producers was a beaming young girl who appears in the opening and closing of this delightful film about a handful of people whose vocations are maintaining musical instruments made available without charge, to students in the LA Unified School District. Seeing her on stage gave me the impression the focus of the film would be on the young people who benefited from the musical programs. However, in keeping with the movie's title, most of the time was spent on the employees of the shop. Even though I anticipated a feel good film attributing to the positive impact playing instruments has on students this film steered me into another, altogether pleasing direction. Porsche, the young girl on stage donning a layered, blue taffeta dress and an updo, is seen in braids and barrettes brandishing her violin while attesting to how much she loves playing. We also met several other student musicians including a pianist and a euphonium player. They eloquently share their passion for playing and performing for an audience. These delightful but sparingly interspersed interviews are interwoven with longer vignettes of shop employees tending to battered instruments, tuning pianos and soldering of wind instruments. As the film narrows in on the employees of working in the shop, we are swept up into incredibly fascinating individuals from various backgrounds. The shop's manager, Steve Bahmanyan survived ethnic persecution in Azerbaijan as young boy. He escaped to the U.S. with his mother and brother following the murder of his father. Bahmanyan, gives us a run down on the haphazard records for the instruments needing repair with an irrepressible smile. His effervescent demeanor is all the  more surprising as the details of his harrowing childhood are revealed. The family who sponsored Bahmanyan's family owned a piano repair/tuning business where Bahmanyan was first mentored. He spoke on behalf of the shop, "The work that we do is important and needs to be passed down, but people who do what we do are a dying breed. Children are our future, and yet we're cutting arts and music programs around the country."  Paty Moreno repairs woodwinds at the shop. She crossed into the U.S. illegally in her 20s and raised two small children as a single parent.  Moreno shares how life changing  her job has been for her and children.  The film plucks at the heartstrings for an inspiring documentary without sounding cloying. The technician varnishing a cracked cello reminds us, "Music is the best thing that mankind does."