168 Documentaries to Compete for the Oscar

By Glenn Charlie Dunks

The Academy has announced the long (long, very long) list for this year’s Best Documentary Feature category. 168 titles have qualified for members of the doc branch to whittle down to a 15-wide shortlist and then a nominated five. That figure is higher than last year, which had 144 eligible titles and which culminated in a win for Daniel Roher’s Navalny. 

If you were to ask me right now what titles I expect to find on this year’s shortlist, I might say the following: Against the Tide (Sarvnik Kaur), American Symphony (Matthew Heineman), Anonymous Sister (Jamie Boyle), The Eternal Memory (Maite Alberdi), Four Daughters (Kaouther Ben Hania), Lakota Nation vs United States (Laura Tomaselli, Jesse Short Bull), Little Richard: I Am Everything (Lisa Cortés), The Mission (Jesse Moss, Amanda McBaine), Occupied City (Steve McQueen), Silver Dollar Road (Raoul Peck), Smoke Sauna Sisterhood (Anna Hints), A Still Small Voice (Luke Lorentzen), Still: A Michael J Fox Movie (Davis Guggenheim), To Kill a Tiger (Nisha Pahuja) and 20 Days in Mariupol (Mstyslav Chernov). But the whims of this branch can change on a dime, so we won’t know until the shortlists announcements later this month.

You can scroll through the entire list below beginning with After Sherman through to Your Fat Friend. I have linked to reviews of titles where we have them, but also included ten short capsules for other titles that I have seen and been unfortunately lax in actually writing about.

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An AI Biopic? No, Thank You!

by Cláudio Alves

Warner has released a proof of concept image showing what the animation will look like.

With the SAG strike over and a new three-year contract in sight for actors, it felt like we could all breathe a sigh of relief over the current Hollywood AI takeover. Not forever, but a temporary reprieve nevertheless. Well, guess what? There's no rest for the cinephile, for a new nightmare is upon us. The Warner Music Group has partnered with the Edith Piaf estate to create an AI-based biopic, running for 90 minutes and mixing archival future with animation. Over it all, a feat of technological necromancy will have the legendary French singer narrate her own story or the corporate-approved facsimile of it.

The execs behind the travesty speak of authenticity, but I only see mercenary intent. It's anti-art, sickening in the worst way…

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Review: "Orlando, My Political Biography"

by Cláudio Alves

The future of cinema is in non-fiction. Though conventional narrative cinema still dominates the mainstream, it's within the documentary realm that the medium's most radical innovations tend to manifest, paving a path to the seventh art's tomorrow. That said, to consider cinema in binaries may be holding on to an outdated model. The way forward could entangle the cinema, as Iranian and Portuguese filmmakers have done for decades. In that regard, Orlando, My Political Biography is the future of cinema dressed in ruffs, non-binary, and transgressing past neat categorization.

Philosopher turned director Paul B. Preciado rejects structural dualities in search of something somewhere between academism and anarchic theater, a reflection of his and his subjects' essential queerness…

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"Fallen Leaves" and "The Zone of Interest" lead the EFA nominations

by Cláudio Alves

Because of their specific focus and disconnection from the mainstream release calendar, the European Film Awards are rarely seen as part of the long road to Oscar. Then again, there's always the exception that proves the rule, and this year is exceptional, alright. Many Academy Award contenders showed up across the board, even beyond those submitted for the Best International Film category. Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest and Aki Kaurismäki's Fallen Leaves, for instance, scored nominations for Picture, Director, Actress, Actor, and Screenplay. Sandra Hüller even managed to double-dip, getting recognized for this Nazi nightmare and her turn in Justine Triet's Palme d'Or winner, Anatomy of a Fall.

Discover the complete list of European Film Awards nominations, plus some additional commentary, after the jump…

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Doc Corner: 'Another Body'

By Glenn Charlie Dunks

Well, this is upsetting.

When college student Taylor Klein receives a chat message from a male friend with a PornHub link, she naturally assumes he’s been hacked. Turns out he is informing her that a sex tape of her has appeared online. Except that it’s no such thing. It is a fake. A deepfake; a video in which her likeness—taken from a social media sweep of images wherein she eats ice-cream, kisses her boyfriend and spends time with family—has been digitally imposed upon pornography. We’ve certainly come a long way from putting a celebrity’s head on a porn star’s body and saying it’s legit. Several sad yet logical steps down the ladder to the bottom of the barrel.

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