RICHARD LEACOCK: ESSENTIAL SHORTS

These four hard-to-find shorts are essential touchstones of documentary film history. Canary Island Bananas (11 min, 1935), Leacock’s first film, made in his teens, memorializes his father’s banana plantation. Toby and the Tall Corn, (30 min, 1954), about a Midwest tent show, was a breakthrough in handheld camerawork. Happy Mother’s Day (26 min, 1964; co-directed by Joyce Chopra) looks at the frenzy of attention around the mother of quintuplets. Chiefs (20 min, 1967; co-directed by Noel Parmentel), chronicles a police convention in a volatile era.