The First Oscar Eligibility Lists are Here!

by Cláudio Alves

PIECE BY PIECE is the only film competing in both the ANIMATED and DOCUMENTARY Oscar races.

At long last, AMPAS has started divulging its eligibility lists for the 97th Academy Awards. As is usual, the first categories to be announced are the special feature races – Animated, Documentary, and International Film (click on each category to see their prediction pages). This year, 31 cartoons vie for the Oscar, while 167 docs form the non-fiction race. In Best International Feature Film, this year has 85 official submissions. This state of affairs differs from some of the earlier reports that pointed toward 89 films contending, but we're used to many disqualifications. It's a steep decline from the past few years, and it's the first time since 2018 that the number of total submissions is below 90. We have to go back to 2015, with 82 nations competing, to find a year with even fewer films in contention.

You can read more about such trivia in Nathaniel's extensive two-part overview of the Best International Film race. Still, I added some additional trivia for all three categories in this write-up. Find out more after the jump…

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Review: "Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat" is Essential Viewing

by Cláudio Alves

One of the year's best and most essential documentaries is finally in theaters! Johan Grimonprez's Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat is 50% history lesson, 50% jazz concerto, and 100% political essay if you can believe it, a mad dash rollercoaster of a documentary that brings together a litany of ideas under the same cinematic roof, illuminating their connective tissue like few films before it. The entire thing might run for two and a half hours, but you'll hardly notice the time passing since there's no opportunity for passive, apathetic spectatorship. Instead, the filmmakers demand full attention and a modicum of curiosity, trusting the viewer to keep up with Rik Chaubet's miraculous cutting as Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat approaches midcentury decolonization movements through a musical prism…

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"Anora" leads the Gotham Nominations

by Cláudio Alves

ANORA seems poised to dominate the awards season.

Another year, another awards season. And, like it happens every fall, the Gotham Awards have the privilege of kicking the race into high gear. Unsurprisingly, Anora leads with four nominations, followed by Nickel Boys and I Saw the TV Glow with three nods a piece, though the latter failed to get a spot in the Best Feature category. Then again, it's worth remembering that the Gothams' nine categories are divided into five distinct committees with no overlap between them. The same people (critics, curators, editors, and programmers) who decide the Director and Screenplay nominees have no say in who makes it into the acting races, for example.

So, expect idiosyncrasies and don't put much stock in how some films appear in a couple of major categories but not others. More than a precursor for Oscar gold, these prizes often feel like an opportunity to highlight the richness of the cinematic year before the viable contenders get reduced to a limited lot. So, let's take a look at their selection…

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NYFF: "Union" documents a worthwhile cause with insight and intimacy

by Nick Taylor

How is it that two of the year’s best documentaries currently have no major distribution team behind them? Actually, given the subject matter of both films, the logic for each case makes too much sense, but I’ll be using my little bully pulpit to rage against this. One of those films, the Palestinian documentary No Other Land, has already been covered by our beloved Cláudio Alves. The second film in this position is Union, Brett Story and Stephen Maing’s chronicle of the Amazon Labor Union’s grassroots campaign to be recognized by Amazon at the company’s Staten Island facilities in 2021. As an industrial giant whose tendons continue creeping deeper into every industry on the planet, it’s almost funny to watch them take such umbrage about this film when they might save more face by just letting it emerge into the world, rather than giving the ALU yet another chance to raise hell about Amazon silencing unions. In a very real way, the cooperative effort from so many of Union’s producers and backers to give it an Oscar-qualifying release mirrors the grassroots spirit of the film itself. Its release won’t be huge, but Level Ground is making sure it gets out into the world, and hopefully word of mouth praise for its timely subject should be enough to get butts in the theater.

If you want to hear more, join me under the cut . . . .

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"Sugarcane" leads the Critics Choice Documentary Awards nominations

by Cláudio Alves

National Geographic's SUGARCANE is the nomination leader, with citations in eight categories.

Since 2016, the Critics Choice Awards has expanded its repertoire to include various documentary categories. These CCDAs are now separate from the precursor we know so well and stand apart as their own thing. Still, most look at these honors as Oscar predictors. Which is understandable if not wholly supported by a complete correlation between AMPAS and the CCDA. Not even when the latter have double the nominees for their main prize. On their ninth edition, they have opted for a curiously tame selection, at odds with the current political climate. There's a big emphasis on glossy biographical works and celebrity profiles, formalistic conventionality, studio fare, and all that jazz. That being said, Sugarcane leads with eight nods.

Emily Kassie and Julian Brave NoiseCat's film goes into a case of abuse and missing children at a Sugarcane Reserve's Christian school. Focusing on the Native American community, Sugarcane is certainly not without an urgent message and a perspective on its subject. The same can't be said about all its competitors…

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