Glenn here. The nominations and specialty category winners were announced today for the 31st International Documentary Association Awards. It's a line-up heavy on artist portraits, Ukraine, and films heavy on the use of archive footage. Last year's IDA list featured three eventual Oscar nominees (Finding Vivian Maier, Salt of the Earth and the winner of both Citizenfour), but other years since 2010 the number has only been two. Except 2011 when the IDA people went way off course (in the best possible way) and awarded Patricio Guzman's Nostalgia for the Light with no eventual Oscar nominees in their list (Guzman's The Pearl Button didn't find favor from them this year, though).
I see no reason why this year won't follow that ratio status quo. But firstly let's take a look at the nominees.
BEST FEATURE
- Amy
- The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution
- Listen to Me Marlon
- The Look of Silence
- The Russian Woodpecker
- What Happened, Miss Simone?
I am extremely pleased to see the excellent Russian Woodpecker cited here. If Oscar could pay attention to that superb examination of paranoia amid the Ukrainian revolution then I would be more than ecstatic. And if you have the chance to see it then do yourself a favour. But what about the rest...
Elsewhere, I still struggle with seeing Amy as an Oscar nominee for various reasons (a win is inevitable if it does, I'm sure), but I wonder if the critics awards will be one-sided again this season for Asif Kapadia's patchwork video scrapbook and allow it to overcome those. Right now I would be predicting Miss Simone and The Look of Silence. As we've discussed before, Oscar's doc branch rarely ever goes for non-fiction films about films so Listen to Me Marlon isn't one I'd be looking at (but, hey, you never know!) Might be worth keeping an eye out for The Black Panthers: Vanguage of the Revolution, although I have heard it is rather rudimentary in its storytelling, which could be a hindrance.
BEST SHORT
- Body Team 12
- Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah
- The Face of Ukraine: Casting Oksana Baiul
- Last Day of Freedom
- Object
Three of these - Body Term 12, Spectres of the Shoah, and Last Day of Freedom - were recently shortlisted by the Academy for their own doc short category. Safe bet would be on one of those, but the IDA and Oscar rarely have much cross over with this category. Personally, I did a bit of a squeal for Kitty Green's The Face of Ukraine being nominated. It's so fantastic and Green deserves all the plaudits she gets for both this and her scathing, incredible 2014 feature companion Ukraine is Not a Brothel.
ABC NEWS VIDEOSOURCE AWARD
- ERROR
- Best of Enemies
- Don't Think I've Forgotten: Cambodia's Lost Rock and Roll
- Night Will Fall
- What Happened, Miss Simone?
I love that a documentary organisation has this category given how essential archival news footage is to so many documentaries. I'd be banking on Best of Enemies since it makes an entire movie out of televised news (another reason I expect it to resonate with the Academy).
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
- Artem Ryzhykov, The Russian Woodpecker
BEST EDITING
- Joe Beshenkovsky and Brett Morgen, Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck
BEST WRITING
- Stevan Riley and Peter Ettedgui, Listen to Me Marlon
BEST MUSIC
- Jonathan Kirkscey, Best of Enemies
So happy for The Russian Woodpecker and Montage of Heck to pick up these well-deserved prizes. The editing of that Cobain flick is exceptional, and the photography of Woodpecker goes above and beyond the call of duty of a documentary. The rest of the TV categories (The Jinx being the most well-known nominee) can be seen over here.
Have you thoughts changed on the doc categories? What are your hunches?