Margie Soudek’s Salt and Pepper Shakers (2023)

Overview

An artist and VFX instructor connects with her aging grandmother, Margie, in a documentary short on collecting, artmaking, and obsessiveness as a way to enhance our realities. Margie has been collecting salt and pepper shakers for 73 years — at 94, her days are spent repeating the same, simple routine. When her granddaughter pays her a visit, the collection, now in the thousands, takes on a new life. With a score by Dan Deacon, the film — part love letter, part documentary, part experiment — merges the real, the fantastical, and the world of a computer desktop.