All That Breathes Breathes Easier After Making the Oscar Doc Shortlist But Some Big Titles Fail

UPDATED from the original story at 12:39 p.m. with details on Neon’s Trifecta: Frontrunners Best Documentary Anything that breathes, All the beauty and the bloodshed, fire of loveand the territory is safely through to the next round after the Academy’s Documentary Department narrowed the list of remaining candidates to a shortlist of 15 films.

fellow favourite Navalny by CNN Films – Daniel Roher’s documentary about Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was nearly killed in a Kremlin-engineered poison plot – also made the cut (see full list below). The biggest surprise today was stupidity Good night Oppie, the documentary directed by Ryan White that follows the exciting 2003 NASA mission that sent two rovers to the surface of Mars. The Amblin Entertainment-backed film won best documentary at last month’s Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards, a ceremony that honored White as best director.

Among other surprising omissions, Sydney – the Oprah-produced documentary about the late Sidney Poitier – was removed from the shortlist. This fate was too bad sr.Chris Smith’s documentary about the unorthodox life and career of filmmaker Robert Downey Sr., a film in which Sr. son, the actor Robert Downey Jr., is actively involved.

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wild cat, a late Oscar hopeful from Amazon Studios, which opens in theaters today and December 30 on Amazon Prime, garnered a lot of attention but didn’t make the shortlist, likely due to its year-end debut. The shortlist consists of 144 eligible films, an increase from last year. wild cat and Good night Oppie both are from Amazon Studios.

It was a big day for HBO Documentary Films and National Geographic, which together scored seven shortlisted films. Belongs to the proud offspring of HBO Anything that breathes (along with Sideshow and Submarine Deluxe), the janes, monday dream (along with neon) and All the beauty and the bloodshed, the Laura Poitras-directed film about photographer Nan Goldin who became the scourge of OxyContin’s infamous Sackler family. The latter film is a production of Participant and Praxis Films, distributed in theaters by Neon.

The NatGeo trio consists of fire of loveSara Dosa’s doc about an adventurous French couple who explored volcanoes but lost their lives in the dangerous hunt; the territoryAlex Pritz’s film, which takes viewers to a part of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest where an indigenous minority tries to fend off land grabs and miners; and Retrograde, director Matthew Heineman’s latest film, starring American Green Berets and their Afghans. You can the army’s counterparts, the Taliban, marching relentlessly towards the capital.

Neon also scored and landed a trifecta fire of love, All the beauty and the bloodshed and monday dream the short list.

As in previous years, films with an international dimension received much encouragement from the Doc branch, which welcomed many international members into its ranks. In addition to Anything that breathesShaunak Sen’s documentary about brothers in Delhi, India who care for injured birds of prey has been shortlisted for documentaries with an international dimension A house of splintersthe moving film by Simon Leerg Wilmont about Ukrainian children living in a temporary orphanage, and Children of the MassDirector Ha Le Diem’s ​​film is set in a Hmong community in northern Vietnam. Hidden lettersDirected by Violet Du Feng and Qing Zhao, delves into a community in rural China where women have developed a secret language to cope with patriarchal oppression.

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Veteran filmmaker Ondi Timoner was shortlisted Last flight home from MTV Documentary Films, her touching story of her father’s last days, and Doc-Newcomer received recognition. David Siev, a first-time feature director, helped earn his spot on the shortlist Bad axe (IFC Films), a film about his family and their restaurant in a small, conservative town in Michigan and the struggles they faced during the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement. Children of the Mass‘s Ha Le Diem is also a newcomer to the documentary.

The two highest-grossing documentaries of the year were shortlisted: Brett Morgen’s David Bowie film monday dreamwhich grossed over $12 million worldwide, and fire of love, which totaled $1.6 million. Both were released theatrically by Neon.

Two other interesting notes: monday dream also made it to the shortlist of 10 films in the Sound category. And the documentary The voice of dust and ashes, directed by Mandana Biscotti, earned a spot on the best song shortlist with “Dust and Ash,” composed by J. Ralph, performed by J. Ralph and Norah Jones. The song features a solo by Mojgan Shajarian, the daughter of film subject Mohammad Reza Shajarian.

Here is the full list of the 15 shortlisted documentaries, followed by the shortlist of the 15 short documentaries:

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE FLIP
Fifteen films will make it into the documentary category for the 95th Academy Awards. One hundred and forty-four films qualified in this category. The members of the Documentary Department vote on the shortlist and nominees.

The films, alphabetically by title, are:

“Everything that breathes”
“All the Beauty and the Bloodshed”
“Bad Axe”
“Children of the Mist”
“descendant”
“Fire of Love”
“Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song”
“Hidden Letters”
“A House of Splinters”
“The Jane’s”
“Last Flight Home”
“Moonlight Daydream”
“Navalny”
“decrease”
“The Territory”

DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILM
Fifteen films will make it into the short documentary category for the 95th Academy Awards. Ninety-eight films qualified in the category. The members of the Documentary Department vote on the shortlist and nominees.

The films, alphabetically by title, are:

“American Justice in Court: People vs. Newton”
“anastasia”
“Angola, do you hear us? Voices from a Plantation Prison”
“As far as they can walk”
“The Elephant Whisperers”
“The Flag Makers”
“Happiness is 4 million pounds”
“Departure”
“Hold Moses”
“How do you measure a year?”
“The Martha Mitchell Effect”
“problem bear”
“Shut Up and Paint”
“Stranger at the Gate”
“38 in the Garden”