Loren Waters’ short documentary Tiger is a visual and emotional treat that touches you with its positive outlook and with its pure honesty. It’s a refreshing visual style for a documentary that captivates you from beginning to end.

After a family tragedy, the Tiger family found a new way to make money by creating The Tiger Art Gallery T-Shirt Company. Their designs, inspired by the work of the family’s deceased patriarch, became the t-shirt of choice in 1980s North America. But when tragedy struck again, the business was shaken. Now, over 30 years later, Dana Tiger, a well-renowned artist in her own right, is reviving the brand, a testament to her resilience and strength.

Tiger is the sort of short documentary that you feel is merely an appetiser to something more. Or at the least, you hope it is, as Loren Waters has made a documentary that you never want to end; you want to hear Dana talk endlessly about her family, about what she wants to achieve with her son and what that means to her. She is the type of person who you could just listen to about anything.

With that said, however, the documentary still remains a perfect capsule of familial love and artistry that you are glued to the screen as those mere 12 minutes fly by. With great use of archival footage and some brilliant directorial choices, you simply cannot help but marvel at how Dana Tiger views life.

Waters employs a myriad of unique storytelling techniques in Tiger. With cinematographer Robert L Hutter, we have a floating, ethereal feel as we learn about the Tiger family’s past. We have probably the best iteration of that traditional talking head portion that you will see in a documentary. With multiple cameras on Dana, she lies on an old diving board of a former swimming pool turned pond. She provides wonderful flourishes throughout the 12-minute runtime, and you can only be thoroughly impressed by the feel of it all.

It’s this personal feel, a documentary made to be an extension of the subject itself. This near looseness allows the audience to feel as if they are hanging out with someone they know; its deeply relaxed nature lures you in as Dana details the tragedies that have befallen her family. The editing from Amanda Moy and Eva Dubovoy punctuates this ethereal, dreamlike tone as if we are ushered gently through the timeline to the present day.

From the synopsis, you would imagine that Tiger is going to be an emotional journey about what has happened to the family. Yet, it is something far more than that. It’s really about memories and living with those ghosts of what came from before while trying to make something good out of those times for future generations. To keep those memories forever present. There is an omnipresent optimism in the documentary, even with what has happened to the Tigers’ Dana, who remains resilient and strong, offering a positive voice in a situation that could easily drown others in sorrow.

Tiger is a fascinating insight into a family whose tragedy echoes around them as they try to navigate a world where they can make their own mark while remembering what came before. It’s a documentary that makes you want to see more of it. Tremendous.

★★★★★

Tiger at the 4th World Media Lab and the cINeDIGENOUS section at the 51st Seattle International Film Festival.

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