5 BROKEN CAMERAS by Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi was one of 15 films shortlisted for the Oscar doc award this week.
Doc news this week was dominated by the release of the names of the fifteen documentary features named to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) Oscar award shortlist. Peter Knegt of Indiewire tallied the list, and soon enough people from around the doc world were weighing on on who made the list, and who might have been left off. An added layer of interest was added as this was the first doc shortlist announced since the documentary branch of the Academy changed its rules, ostensibly to help films made with a theatrical release in mind.
At the What (Not) to Doc blog, Basil Tsiokos pointed to capsule reviews that he had done of most of the shortlisted films. Writing for the New York Times, Melena Ryzek weighed in on the list, as did Dan Schnidel at Screenpicks. At the Documentary Channel blog, Christopher Campbell assessed whether the doc rule changes had worked, while Tom Roston also reviewed the list. The DocGeeks blog did us the favor of rounding up available trailers for the films on the shortlist, while the team at Realscreen gathered interviews it had conducted with seven of the shortlisted filmmakers over the past year.
In other Oscar news, Kay Shackleton reported that documentary filmmaker pioneer D.A. Pennebaker was given an honorary Oscar award on Dec. 2 at the 2012 Governors Awards. Huffington Post writer Allan M. Jalon got a chance to speak with the living legend on his career and recent award. Thomas White also covered the awards for the International Documentary Association (IDA) website. Continue reading…
The Sundance Institute this week announced the lineup for the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, actually taking two days to announce the full list of films that will be screening in Park City, Utah, early next year. At first blush, the doc that seems to be getting the most attention is PUSSY RIOT – A PUNK PRAYER, about the Russian dissident punk band. At Realscreen, coverage came courtesy of Kelly Anderson, who wrote a piece about docs in competition and another about a few spotlight films heading to the festival. At Indiewire, Jay Fernandez’s coverage was split into two pieces as well, one on the U.S. docs in competition and another on the world docs. The DocGeeks blog also had a piece on the out-of-competition films at Sundance, as well as the projects being shown as part of the New Frontier program.
The doc awards machine continued to trundle on, with Realscreen’s Kevin Ritchie reporting that David France’s HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE won best docmentary at the Gotham Awards, while the Jared Leto-helmed film ARTIFACT took home the audience award. Writing at the Documentary Channel blog, Christopher Campbell said ARTIFACT’s win propelled the film to his must-see docs list for the year.
The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) ended on Nov. 25, but the festival announced its award winners a few days earlier, with director Alan Berliner winning the award for best feature-length documentary for his latest film FIRST COUSIN ONCE REMOVED. Adam Benzine of Realscreen wrote a piece on all of the winners, as did Rosemarie Hugill of the DocGeeks blog.
Programmer Basil Tsiokos was also at IDFA, turning out copy for Indiewire over the course of the festival. You can read his post highlighting ten films on his must-see list here, and take a look at seven projects at IDFA Forum worth keeping an eye on here, which includes POV series producer Yance Ford’s project STRONG ISLAND. Rose Vincelli of Filmmaker Magazine also had a write up on the IDFA Forum, as did Realscreen’s Adam Benzine. And STF Artistic Director Thom Powersdug up an article about the Forum that he penned for the Boston Globe almost 10 years ago for those interested in seeing how things have changed since then. The True/False Festival blog took a look at Victork Kossakovsky’s Top Ten films that screened at IDFA. Also, Nienke Huitenga reported on the Interactive Doc Conference at IDFA for the festival’s website, while Mandy Rose also had a comprehensive rundown of the Interactive Conference events for the i-Docs blog.
The film RAFEA: SOLAR MAMA won the Audience Award at this year’s DOC NYC Festival.
The third annual DOC NYC ended its run on Thursday, with the festival’s award winners named just prior to a screening held that night of the new film THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE by directors Ken Burns, Sarah Burns and David McMahon. Writing for Movies.com, Christopher Campbell noted three films that screened at the festival made his must-see list for the year. And in his weekly Docutopia blog post, Anthony Kaufman took a look at some of the films at DOC NYC that investigate the notion of innocence lost. Kaufman also reflected on Jamie Meltzer’s film INFORMANT, which won the festival’s Viewfinders Grand Jury Prize. Continue reading…
Liz Garbus’s film Bobby Fischer Against the World was one of the recipients of a Grierson British Documentary Award this year.
We seem to have entered that period of the year known as “Awards Season,” with the accolades starting to fly at an ever-increasing pace. At Realscreen, Adam Benzine tallied up the winners of the Grierson British Documentary Awards, noting that the Liz Garbus film BOBBY FISCHER AGAINST THE WORLD had nabbed the Best Cinema Documentary award. Jennifer Merin of About.com also had a recap of the awards, as did Alexandra Zeevalkink of DocGeeks, who noted that the BBC cleaned up at the awards.
