DOC NYC Announce Their 15 Oscar Potentials

by Glenn Dunks

Every year the mammoth New York based documentary film festival DOC NYC announces a program of films titled the “Short List”. These are films they describe as "[feeling] like worthy contenders for the Oscar short list based on festival accolades, reviews, box office”, culled from a longer list by means of “evaluating what titles appear to have momentum.”

The DOC NYC festival casts a very wide net for their selections with an annual line-up including films that have already screened in theatrical release or on television. Because of this, they’re able to claim to have played the last six winners of the Best Documentary Oscar. And in the four years since they began the Short List, the only Oscar nominee to not feature in the Short List program is Virunga. It’s an impressive statistic if not a somewhat deflating one knowing that this year’s nominees are likely somewhere to be found in this list of 15. But that's the Oscar prognastication game for you and we all love to play along so it's worth mentioning.

THE FINAL YEAR (Greg Barker)

There’s still about two months until the Academy release their own shortlist of 15 from the estimated 130 titles that will be submitted. But for now, let’s take a look at what DOC NYC are hedging their bets on...

• Abacus: Small Enough to Jail, dir. Steve James (Glenn’s review)
• The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography, dir. Errol Morris
• Chasing Coral, dir. Jeff Orlowski (Glenn’s review)
• City of Ghosts, dir. Matthew Heineman (Glenn’s review)
• Dina, dir. Antonio Santini and Dan Sickles (Sundance Grand Jury Prize)
• Faces Places, dir. Agnes Varda (Murtada’s review)
• The Final Year, dir. Greg Barker
• The Force, dir. Peter Nicks
• Icarus, dir. Bryan Fogel (Glenn’s review)
• Jane, dir. Brett Morgan
• Kedi, dir. Ceyda Torun (Glenn’s review)
• One of Us, dir. Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady
• Risk, dir. Laura Poitras (Glenn’s review)
• Step, dir. Amanda Lipitz (Sundance Special Jury Award for Inspirational Filmmaking)
• Strong Island, dir. Yance Ford (Glenn’s review)

I hope this means good things for Ford’s Strong Island, which is probably the best documentary I’ve personally seen in 2017. I am here for it to become the sleeper of the category – it’s out now on Netflix and it would be great to have a low-key breakthrough for transgender representation at the Oscars (Ford would be the first trans director ever nominated).

If I had to place bets on which of these titles won’t make the Academy’s own 15-wide list then I would say The B-Side, The Final Year, Risk and Jane could easily be knocked out for various reasons including most prominantly that they just rarely go for bio-docs about famous living subjects. You have to go back to Exit Through the Gift Shop in 2009 for one of those. A lot of people assume certain figures must be Oscar catnip, but it's just not the case anymore.

I also think that there’s a reason why they have to give Agnes Varda an honorary Oscar this year; she’s never quite taken their fancy and I’m unsure the cute, but slight, Faces Places is the one to do that when the branch knows she’s winning an honorary trophy anyway. The film that Varda's reminded me of, as a matter of fact, of Kedi (for reasons that may become obvious once you've seen them both), but that has its big box office to give it a leg up.

Absent titles that feel like they could still be forces with Oscar include Ai Weiwei’s Human Flow, Whose Streets, Oklahoma City, LA 92, Casting JonBenet (if they’re feeling frisky with a potential critics award hit), The Work and any of the other Syria-focused docs including Feras Fayyad’s Last Men in Aleppo and Cries from Syria by Oscar-nominated Evgeny Afineevsky.

As you can see, we’ve reviewed half of the titles and already had tentative plans to cover the rest in some capacity either when they are released theatrically or as we get into the thick of awards season. Part of The Film Experience’s dedication to coverage of cinema in all of its forms!

How many have you seen from DOC NYC’s list and what do you think of their Oscar chances? We know it can often take a while to get around to watching documentaries, so people don’t always comment when reviews first go up, but we’d love to hear if you’ve caught any of these throughout the year.

DOC NYC runs from Nov 9 - 16. We hope to be covering it in some aspect. Keep a look out.

Comments

[NATHANIEL R]

Seeing this all laid out like this Glenn I have to say that you've been on fire this year covering the major titles. We have reviews of so many of them already! (So thanks to you! and Murtada for Faces / Places)

i should start watching these even though I'm not that big of a doc guy. I will take your STRONG ISLAND recommendation seriously.

[Peggy Sue]

I'm SO behind this year!

Agree. Glenn is super helpful (and super sexy)

[Glenn Dunks]

Peggy, bless you for always having something to say! And thanks for the compliment. I'm chuffed.