Too informal for some occasions, though too formalistic for some tastes – the 1970s prefer them extra short and Europeans typically a bit longer – in the past you could expect to see a fancy pair or two in every [movie-]house but in today’s chillier economic climate you’d be hard pressed to find even one.

Good shorts can be hard to find.

That’s why the Documentary Bodega Series is pleased to continue serving as an exhibition space for hard-to-find media in presenting In Short: It’s Non Fiction., a collection of fresh and innovative short programming across the spectrum of non-fiction by four locally based filmmakers.

We’ll have all four in attendance, so come for the exemplary work and home made snacks (have you seen our new projection booth and bar yet?) and stay for a conversation with the filmmakers themselves.

A portrait of a holocaust survivor who learned the art of tailoring while imprisoned in a concentration camp. Emigrating to America, Martin Greenfield rose from floor boy, to manager, to owner of a garment factory producing custom men’s suits in Brooklyn, NY. Along the way he made suits for celebrities, power brokers, and heads of state, including presidents Bill Clinton and Dwight Eisenhower. His sense of style brought him success and allowed him to give back to the city that took him in as a young man. He now provides jobs for hundreds of working class people, most of them immigrants, and produces top quality clothing the old-fashioned way. This film tells his story, and offers a glimpse inside one of the few remaining hand-made suit factories in the world.

Over the years Paul Mawhinney has amassed what has become the world’s largest record collection. But due to his ailing health and a struggling record industry Paul finds himself forced to put his life’s work up for auction. The Archive is an examination of this unprecedented vinyl-record collection, the man who has collected it, and the current state of the American record industry.

Splitting Hairs is a documentary about the American invasion of the World Beard and Moustache Championships. The story follows Beard Team USA Captain Phil Olsen and Whisker Club President Bruce Roe, founders of the only two competitive facial hair clubs in America. Each lead a group of Americans to the Championships in Berlin, and compete to become the face of the American Beard/Moustache movement. The film culminates with an election that will determine the future of the sport.

Based on a collection of tape-recorded arguments between the artist Lindsay Napolitano and her partner over a period of several months, “Fight Scene: Take 37” mixes performance, video, and documentary in an attempt to deconstruct the fight scene and deflate it of it’s intended aggression. Here we see the couple’s domestic arguments re-enacted and dramatized into public spectacle confusing gender, pattern and specificity to the point of almost complete de-contextualization. And still a universal narrative emerges in this awkward, emotional, and experimental take on the relationship dialectic.