Buckskin (2026)
Every so often a documentary short comes along that reminds you how much can be achieved in under twenty minutes when a film-maker knows exactly what they are reaching for. Mars Verrone's Buckskin is one of those: a tender, beautiful and quietly educational portrait of the director's own grandfather that works as both tribute and history lesson. It is a genuinely strong piece of work. Three and a half stars.
The subject is Carroll B. Williams Jr., a ground-breaking African-American forester, and the film finds him in the twilight of his life, reflecting on his work and his legacy. Verrone, his grandchild, films him with obvious love, and part of what gives the piece its ache is that Williams appears to be losing his memory, so that the act of recording him becomes a kind of preservation, a holding-on to a man and a life before both slip further away. It is a delicate thing to attempt and the film handles it with real grace.
What I did not expect was how much I would learn. Williams was a pioneer, and the film doubles as an education in a man and a field most of us know nothing about, threading his recollections and a handful of well-chosen quotes from the man himself through its running time so that the tribute never floats free of the facts. It is a portrait that respects its subject enough to tell you why he mattered, not just that he is loved.
Visually it is a real treat. The cinematography is fantastic, with some gorgeous shots of nature that root Williams in the forests and landscapes that defined his life's work, and the whole thing is edited with a precision and a rhythm that lets the images and the voice breathe without ever dragging. There is a real craft on display here, the kind that makes a short feel complete rather than truncated.
If I hold it a half-step back from the very top, it is only that its experimental, impressionistic approach occasionally keeps you at a slight remove when a touch more of Williams in his own words might have landed even harder. But that is a small quibble about a film I admired a great deal. Three and a half stars. As documentary shorts go, Buckskin is really strong, a moving, handsome and thoughtful tribute that preserves a remarkable man and teaches you something along the way. Well worth your time.
Buckskin screens at the BFI London Film Festival as part of the Experimenta strand.
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