Weiner, 13th, and OJ: Made In America Among DOC NYC Short List

One week after La La Land won the Toronto People’s Choice Award – a key indicator of a film’s likelihood of securing an Oscar nomination for Best Picture – another major awards season clue has come to us in the form of the DOC NYC's Short List. DOC NYC is the largest documentary film festival in the country and it has hosted specially curated non-fiction in the city since 2010, but don’t let its infancy fool you. If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. And by anywhere, I specifically mean the Academy’s own shortlist for Best Documentary Feature; in the last five years, the ultimate winner of the prize and a bulk of runners-up have played the fest.

This year, the crop of fifteen films headed to DOC NYC include Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg’s marvelous collision of media and politics Weiner, Roger Ross Williams’ tear-jerker Life, Animated, and Ezra Edelman’s eight-hour saga OJ: Made in America. Legendary documentarians Barbara Kopple and Werner Herzog find themselves in the mix – as does the increasingly ambidextrous Ava DuVernay for her NYFF opener 13th – while well-received titles such as Under the Gun, The Eagle Huntress, and Strike a Pose (reviewed) are left on the sidelines.

The complete DOC NYC Short List is as follows
(Links go to our reviews of these films)

• Amanda Knox (Netflix) Dirs: Rod Blackhurst, Brian McGinn
• Cameraperson (Janus Films) Dir: Kirsten Johnson 
• Fire at Sea (Kino Lorber) Dir: Gianfranco Rosi 
• Gleason (Open Road & Amazon Studios) Dir: Clay Tweel
• I Am Not Your Negro (Magnolia Pictures) Dir: Raoul Peck
• Into The Inferno (Netflix) Dir: Werner Herzog
• Jim: The James Foley Story (HBO Documentary Films) Dir: Brian Oakes
• Life, Animated (The Orchard & A&E IndieFilms) Dir: Roger Ross Williams
• Mapplethorpe: Look At The Pictures (HBO Documentary Films) Dir: Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato
• Miss Sharon Jones! (Starz) Dir: Barbara Kopple 
• OJ: Made in America (ESPN) Dir: Ezra Edelman
• 13th (Netflix) Dir: Ava DuVernay
• The Ivory Game (Netflix) Dir: Kief Davidson, Richard Ladkani
• Trapped (PBS-Independent Lens) Dir: Dawn Porter 
• Weiner (IFC Films & Showtime) Dir: Josh Kriegman, Elyse Steinberg

Is there an Oscar winner in our midst? Personally, this is a reminder to get myself out to the theater to see Cameraperson ASAP. Which of these are your favorites and which are you most excited to check out?

Instagram Battles: Juliette, Naomi, or Jess?

Would you rather 

...play foozball with Juliette Lewis?
...eat birthday cakepops with Naomi Watts? 
...go horseback riding with Jessica Chastain? 

A photo posted by Juliette Lewis (@juliettelewis) on Sep 23, 2016 at 6:10am PDT

Why eat one, when you can have them all? #cantstopme #mybirthday #cakepops #strangeinvention #sorrynotsorry 🎂🎂🎂 📷@samtaylorjohnson #gypsy #bts

A photo posted by Naomi Watts (@naomiwatts) on Sep 28, 2016 at 2:37pm PDT

Meet my set horse, Amigo. "And amigos we'll forever be." #womanwalksahead #NMfilm #gettingmyrideon

A video posted by Jessica Chastain (@jessicachastain) on Sep 28, 2016 at 3:29pm PDT

Review: Queen of Katwe

by Eric Blume

Usually adjectives like “inspirational” and “crowd-pleasing” make most serious moviegoers want to go running straight for the hills, and indeed the trailer for Disney’s Queen of Katwe made me shudder.  This true story of a poor Ugandan girl (played here by newcomer Madina Nalwanga) who becomes a candidate master at chess has all the markers of the usual Disney underdog story, and you expect all the typical manipulation that comes with it. 

But most films aren’t directed by Mira Nair, and she turns Queen of Katwe into something rare:  a true story that plays authentically and simply.  Nair shot this film in the actual slums of Katwe in Kampala, Uganda, and her love for the place, the people, and the culture is unmistakable...

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Interview: Director Elite Zexer on Israel's Oscar Submission 'Sand Storm'

Jose here. Elite Zexer’s Sand Storm takes place in a Bedouin village where men have all the power, even if it’s evident it’s women who should be running things. Within this community we meet the young Layla (Lamis Ammar), a free spirited young woman who is secretly dating a local boy, aware that her parents might want to marry her to someone else. Even though the premise might seem familiar, what’s remarkable is how Zexer crafts a study about the structure of this village, making the film feel more like an anthropological study than a traditional drama. After successful showings at Sundance and Toronto, the film went on to win the top Ophir Award making it Israel’s official submission for the Oscars. I spoke to Zexer about the origins of the story, her curious background, and whether she thinks her film is a political work.

Read the interview after the jump. 

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NYFF - Abacus: Small Enough to Jail

Here's Jason reporting from the New York Film Festival with the latest doc from the director of Hoop Dreams.

At first Abacus: Small Enough to Fail plays like a game of chicken that director Steve James is playing with our sympathies - Bankers, the premiere villains of the 21st century, who might as well come with their own lightning strike and accompanying thunder-crack on the soundtrack, are here our Heroes. You'd be forgiven for spending the first act or so asking yourself, as the drama unfolds - am I really sympathizing with these people?

And James doesn't mess around, aiming straight for our sentimental jugulars...

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