Searchlight Pictures, L.A. Times Board Doc Short ‘The Last Repair Shop’ From Kris Bowers, Ben Proudfoot

Matt Grobar
·4 min read
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Searchlight Pictures and the L.A. Times Studios on Wednesday announced their boarding of The Last Repair Shop, an acclaimed documentary short, which just received two Critics Choice Association nominations and a spot on DOC NYC’s Short List, on the heels of its premiere at Telluride.

Co-directed by Oscar- and Grammy-nominated and Emmy-winning filmmaker and musician Kris Bowers, as well as Oscar winner Ben Proudfoot, the film likely to be put up for awards consideration will become available to stream for free globally November 8th, via the Los Angeles Times’ YouTube channel and latimes.com. Check out a new trailer for the short above.

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'The Last Repair Shop' poster
'The Last Repair Shop' poster

“We’ve discovered such a special film with The Last Repair Shop, and we’re thrilled to be working with Ben and Kris,” said Searchlight Pictures Presidents David Greenbaum and Matthew Greenfield. “This is the kind of story we need right now, and we are proud to shed light on these extraordinary personal journeys.”

Added Leslie Lindsey, director of development of L.A. Times Studios and supervising producer of L.A. Times Short Docs, “We are thrilled to announce the release of The Last Repair Shop as part of our L.A. Times Short Docs series. Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers are masterful directors who have captured this stunning story about the people whose craftsmanship helps keep instruments in the hands of the city’s students. We can’t wait for people to see it.”

While providing and freely repaired musical instruments to public schoolchildren was once commonplace in the United States, Los Angeles is now one of the last, and by far the largest city to offer the service, having done so continuously since 1959. The short from the duo behind 2021’s Oscar-nominated A Concerto Is a Conversation grants an all-access pass to the nondescript downtown warehouse where a dwindling handful of devoted craftspeople keep over 80,000 student instruments in good repair.

Led by the charming general manager, Steve Bagmanyan, the film introduces a technician from each department: Dana Atkinson, in the strings division, who takes us to his personal breaking point as a young man confronting his sexuality; Paty Moreno, in charge of brass and the sole woman in the shop, who chronicles her pursuit of the American dream as a Mexican immigrant and single mother; Duane Michaels, a quirky, self-described hillbilly who fixes the woodwind instruments and shares the rip-roaring tale of how his $20 fiddle took him on tour with Elvis; and finally Steve himself, who learned to tune pianos in America after surviving a harrowing escape from ethnic persecution in Azerbaijan in the late 1980s, a conflict again in the headlines today.

“I found out that Steve, one of the main storytellers in the film, personally tuned the school pianos that I grew up playing and learning on,” said Bowers, who is an LAUSD alum. “I had no idea this shop existed until I started making the film with Ben, but The Last Repair Shop became a passionate love letter paying a delayed debt of gratitude to those unsung heroes who gave me and countless others the gift of music. It’s not too much to say I owe my career to people like the four repair people in our film.”

Said Proudfoot, “Every child deserves the opportunity to play music. Because music is not only a worthy discipline and sometimes a wonderful career, but it can also be a healing force that can repair our deepest traumas and teach us to play our part. With The Last Repair Shop, we wanted to celebrate that spirit and pay tribute to a truly unique program that has produced countless legends from John Williams to Kendrick Lamar.”

Set to accompany the film’s release is a national impact campaign that will shed further light on the LAUSD program, as an example for other U.S. cities. Produced by Breakwater Studios, the short’s EPs included Jane Solomon, Peter Rotter, Proudfoot, Bowers, and Briana Henry. Proudfoot and Bowers also produced alongside Jeremy Lambert & Josh Rosenberg, with Bowers additionally providing themes for the original score by Katya Richardson.

Sharon Matthews, Terry Tang, Jason Spingarn-Koff and Leslie Lindsey exec produced for L.A. Times Studios, with Shani Hilton and Nani Walker serving as co-EPS, Karen Foshay as senior publishing producer, and Jessica Q. Chen as associate producer.

The deal was negotiated by Searchlight Pictures’ Paul Hoffman and Chan Phung and Breakwater Studios’ Sam Widdoes.

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