Two long-time collaborators, Rashida Jones & Will McCormack, team up to make A Swim Lesson, which has landed itself on the DOC NYC Short List, a strong predictor of Academy Award contenders.
In 2012, the pair co-wrote and acted in the hit romantic comedy Celeste & Jesse Forever, now they take on the challenge of co-directing their first short documentary, which follows swim instructor Bill Marsh on his eight-day course for children. Will & Rashida create an underwater opera and a philosophical meditation on overcoming fear at any age.
I interviewed them soon after the film screened at the Hamptons Film Festival. It will be broadcast on PBS in late November, in partnership with POV shorts, L.A. Times Studios and Documentary+. We discuss the impact of short-form storytelling, the power of collaboration and the importance of public television.
This year’s DOC NYC Short List features fourteen other exceptional short documentaries, grouped into four categories:
All Thing Metal (Motoki Otsuka)
Julia’s Stepping Stones (Julia Reichert, Steve Bognar, Jim Klein)
Motorcycle Mary (Haley Watson)
The Only Girl in the Orchestra (Molly O’Brien)
A Swim Lesson (Rashida Jones, Will McCormack)
Instruments of a Beating Heart (Ema Ryan Yamazaki)
The Quilters (Jenifer McShane)
The Turnaround (Kyle Thrash, Ben Proudfoot)
Eternal Father (Ömer Sami)
Goodbye, Morganza (Devon Blackwell)
I Am Ready, Warden (Smriti Mundhra)
Seat 31: Zooey Zephyr (Kimberly Reed)
Until He’s Back (Jacqueline Baylon)
Denial (Paul Moakley, Daniel Lombroso)
Incident (Bill Morrison)
Hear our full conversation:
Below is an edited version of our talk:
Bella: You’re both parents, how did you encounter Bill Marsh and decide to make A Swim Lesson?
Rashida: Well, we were both lucky enough to get a spot in Bill's class. Will and I were standing next to each other just marveling at all of the life gems that Bill was imbuing into our children who were screaming and nervous and just trying to stay alive. We were like, wait, can he come to our house and help us get through the day and tell us we're not in charge, tell us to stay in the pool and that we can have whatever feelings we want to? We just felt like there was such a rich world of wisdom in Bill's teachings, not only in trying to navigate our children's lives but also for ourselves.
Will: We call [Bill] Mr Rogers in chlorine. Personally, I had lost my parents in the last few years and I have little kids, so life felt very fragile and evanescent and hard and parenting can often feel like it's filled with a lot of angst and dread, I feel like I'm not quite getting it right. Here was this guy who was very kind, but very firm, teaching the kids how to swim. It was just this extraordinary opera in water. Watching him, you were able to see something that was seemingly mundane and ordinary become extraordinary.
