News

Fusion Entertainment has signed veteran documentary filmmaker Katy Chevigny for management on the heels of the world premiere of her first narrative feature, “The Easy Kind,” at the Telluride Film Festival.

Chevigny has produced or directed over a dozen documentary features and series over the course of her career, and she’s the co-founder of the long-running independent production company Big Mouth Productions. She won an Emmy in 2023 for directing two episodes of “Home” for A24 / AppleTV+. She also co-wrote and co-directed (with Ross Kauffman) the documentary film “E-Team,” for which she was nominated for two Emmys. With Marilyn Ness, she has produced several films, including the Netflix Original documentaries “Becoming,” which was nominated for four Primetime Emmy Awards, and Kirsten Johnson’s Emmy-winning “Dick Johnson Is Dead.” She also co-directed “Deadline” with Johnson. Chevigny is married to Jack Smith, the U.S. attorney who led two Justice Department criminal investigations into Donald Trump.

Veteran cinematographer and director Kirsten Johnson has some thoughts on the power of image.

“There’s never one meaning,” she told filmmakers gathered to meet with her at the Ji.hlava Documentary Film Festival.

Having lensed more that 50 films from the early 1990s on, including “Derrida,” “Fahrenheit 911” “Pray the Devil Back to Hell” and “Citizenfour,” the ebullient and down-to-earth Johnson stepped into directing in 2016 with “Cameraperson.”

That film, a remarkable look back over her career, which spanned current affairs and doc shoots in war zones worldwide – and covered five genocides – helped Johnson deal with much of the trauma she’s covered in her career. “I needed to make that film to help me process,” she says.

It also led to insights in taking agency over what fills the screen, most recently 2020’s “Dick Johnson Is Dead,” which screened before deeply engaged Ji.hlava audiences.

The Netflix-produced project follows Johnson’s father,...

The 28th Ji.hlava Intl. Documentary Film Festival, which runs Oct. 25 – Nov. 3, will offer 340 films, of which 129 are world premieres, 23 international premieres and 11 European premieres.

The program includes a retrospective of Swiss filmmaker Anne Marie Miéville’s work and a showcase of films by Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang.

The festival will be attended by U.S. director Kirsten Johnson, the creator of this year’s festival trailer, Italian director Roberto Minervini, Spanish filmmaker Albert Serra and Romanian director Andrei Ujică.

Marek Hovorka, the festival’s director, said: “The program of Ji.hlava shows the extraordinary power of documentary film. Documentary filmmakers replace the literalness of reality with playfulness and originality of thought. They show us the world as we could hardly see it ourselves – unless, like them, we would like to spend long years with a camera in those places.

“Dialogue has been important to Ji.hlava since its beginning,...

As late-life dates go, for octogenarian widow Ruth, it seems like a good one. The guy is younger, quite personable, and has an interesting job in sustainable architecture, even if she’s embarrassed to initially admit that she’s forgotten his name. She prepares them her favorite brunch — salmon and cream cheese on toast — before he takes her on a surprise getaway. Arriving at the hotel, the lobby looks polished and comfortable, though she’s thrown by the pacifying tone of the staff, and by her date referring to her as his mother. “I’m not a mother,” she clarifies. “I didn’t want kids.” It’s a moment of intense discomfort and acute tenderness — a fine balance that Sarah Friedland’s remarkable debut “Familiar Touch” sustains across a tight but searching 91 minutes.

As viewers will have surmised some time before Ruth (an extraordinary Kathleen Chalfant), she’s being checked into Bella Vista,...

Davis Guggenheim’s “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie,” which chronicled the actor’s life, career and battle with Parkinson’s disease, was named the best nonfiction film of 2023 at the Critics Choice Documentary Awards, which took place on Sunday night in New York City.

The Apple TV+ film won five awards overall, also including best director for Guggenheim, best narration for Fox, best biographical documentary and best editing.

Journalist Mstyslav Chernov Chernov won the award for Best First Documentary for “20 Days in Mariupol.”

Other winners included “Being Mary Tyler Moore” (Best Archival Documentary), “The Deepest Breath” (Best Sports Documentary), “20 Days in Mariupol” (Best Political Documentary), “American Symphony” (Best Music Documentary), “Secrets of the Elephants” (Best Science/Nature Documentary) and “JFK: One Day in America” (Best Historical Documentary).

Jon Batiste won for the music in “American Symphony,” and Tim Cragg won for the cinematography of “The Deepest Breath.

People often refer to a film being "dumped on Netflix" as a pejorative, despite the fact the landscape of entertainment has evolved well beyond a non-theatrical release being a sign of lesser quality. The streamer has distributed some genuinely incredible films, many of which have already been deemed worthy of a physical release treatment by the Criterion Collection, including "Beasts of No Nation," "Okja," "Roma," "The Irishman," "Marriage Story," "Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese," "Dick Johnson is Dead," "The Power of the Dog," and if we're counting international distribution, "Uncut Gems."

And now, the best Netflix film of 2022 and the reigning Oscar winner for Best Animated Feature, "Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio," is joining that elusive club.

A reborn take on Carlo Collodi's classic character of the same name, "Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio" is a marvel of stop-motion animation and arguably the definitive adaptation of the tale.

Documentary veterans Natalie Bullock Brown, Kirsten Johnson, Mary Lampson and Jacqueline Olive are the inaugural documentary film fellows for the documentary film in the public interest research initiative by Harvard’s Shorenstein Center.

As the first cohort of doc film fellows, the foursome will join the center for the fall 2023 semester. There, each fellow will conduct research and do public education activities about questions facing the documentary film field and civic information.

Led by Shorenstein Center’s director Nancy Gibbs and doc filmmaker Sara Archambault, the initiative, which was established in March, will work to examine the challenges facing the documentary field and their impacts on civic life and information.

“In this challenging moment for media and our information ecosystem, we are excited that the Shorenstein Center can provide the support and infrastructure to drive renewed and creative thinking about complex issues in the documentary film space,” says Gibbs.

Archambault...

Exclusive: Film Independent announced today the six Fellows and their projects selected for its Amplifier Fellowship. The 2023 Film Independent Amplifier Fellowship is supported by Founding Sponsor Netflix’s Fund for Creative Equity, a dedicated effort to help build new opportunities for underrepresented communities within entertainment.

Over the course of the nine-month program, the Amplifier Fellows will receive creative support to propel a selected project forward, both creatively and strategically, as well as customized mentorship pairings, including with a Netflix executive as an industry advisor and a board member from Film Independent. Each Fellow will also receive professional coaching in partnership with Renee Freedman & Co, and financial and business advisement and coaching in partnership with The Jill James. Each Fellow will receive a $30,000 unrestricted grant to provide sustainability and/or support their creative endeavors.

“The Amplifier Fellowship supports Black artists on the verge of career breakthrough with a bespoke program that includes impactful granting,...

Through films as varied as “The Father,” “Dick Johnson Is Dead” and “Relic,” dementia and neurodegenerative disease have been extensively portrayed on screen in recent years — a subgenre that carries a trigger warning for anyone with off-screen experience of the subject. For those who think they cannot stomach one more, Maite Alberdi’s “The Eternal Memory” treats inexorably sad material with a lighter, more lyrical approach than most — focusing less on the day-to-day ravages of living with Alzheimer’s than on the slippery, transient concept of memory itself, as formed, held and lost both in the individual mind and a wider collective consciousness. Key to the film’s thesis is that its subject is Augusto Góngora, a veteran Chilean political journalist who labored through the 1970s and 1980s to bring the iniquities of the Pinochet regime to public attention — and later dedicated himself to conserving that national memory for future generations.

Kristen Stewart is no stranger to biopics, with “Seberg” in 2019 and “Spencer” in 2021. Now she has another to add to her upcoming projects, but this one has a meta twist. Variety reports (via Screen Daily) that Stewart will star as the writer and intellectual Susan Sontag in Kirsten Johnson‘s next film, the director’s follow-up to 2016’s “Cameraperson‘ and 2020’s “Dick Johnson Is Dead.”

Read More: ‘The Chronology Of Water’: Kristen Stewart’s Feature Directorial Debut Is A Swimming Memoir With Imogen Poots Set To Star

Johnson will base “Sontag” off Ben Moser‘s 2019 biography “Sontag: Her Life,” with Johnson co-writing a script with Lisa Kron.

Continue reading Kristen Stewart Will Play Susan Sontag In Kirsten Johnson’s Upcoming Meta Documentary, Which Starts Filming At Berlin 2023 at The Playlist.

Kristen Stewart’s next role continues her trend of portraying influential real life women, although this project will feature a meta twist.

The actor is set to portray Susan Sontag in “Sontag,” which will be directed by Kirsten Johnson. Screen Daily first reported the project. The feature is based on the biography “Sontag: Her Life” by Ben Moser, and will be written for the screen by Johnson and Lisa Kron. UK-Australia-based Brouhaha Entertainment will produce the project, which is set to start filming at the Berlin Film Festival, where Stewart is the jury president.

“We’re using Berlin as a moment to kick off the project and do documentary footage of Kristen as the head of the jury and talking to her about how she’s going to become Sontag,” said Gabrielle Tana, who co-founded Brouhaha Entertainment and is producer on the project. “It will be a drama, but with a documentary aspect to it.

US documentary filmmaker Kirsten Johnson will direct, with filming commencing at the Berlinale.

Kristen Stewart is to play US writer, philosopher and political activist Susan Sontag in an upcoming feature for UK-Australia production outfit Brouhaha Entertainment, with US filmmaker Kirsten Johnson to direct.

Four chapters in the tumultuous life of the celebrated and controversial 20th century intellectual will be depicted in the drama, which is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography Sontag: Her Life by Ben Moser. The feature has the working title of Sontag.

New Yorker Sontag, who passed away in 2004, is known for her widely influential critical works such as Against Interpretation,...

The tragedy of memory loss meets the romantic joy of enduring love, while the togetherness of a couple in the present is contrasted by the turmoil of a nation’s past in the latest documentary from Maite Alberdi.

The Eternal Memory - which won the World Documentary Competition Grand Jury Prize at Sundance - is a deeply moving consideration of the life of TV journalist Augusto Gongora and his actress wife Paulina Urrutia, who was once also Chilean minister of culture. Together for more than 20 years, Augusto was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2014 and Alberdi’s film unfolds over the four years to 2022 as his condition worsens, including capturing the couple’s marriage in 2016.

There have been strong documentaries on the subject before, including Bicycle, Apple, Spoon and Dick Johnson Is Dead, but Alberdi’s is striking in its intimacy - it’s hard to believe there is anyone in.

The 2020 Sundance Film Festival proved to be the last major movie event before Covid-19 knocked the Earth off its axis. More than merely washing the bad taste of Cats out of our mouths, the fest — which ran from Jan. 23 to Feb. 2 — showcased a plethora of exciting (sorta) independent films and emerging talents. Audiences took in stirring documentaries like Dick Johnson Is Dead and Boys State, breakout turns from Aubrey Plaza (Black Bear) and Taylour Paige (Zola), and future awards-hopefuls Promising Young Woman and Never Rarely Sometimes Always. But one film stood out among the pack,...

Last Year’s Winner: “Boys State”

Still Eligible: No.

Hot Streak: Last year Apple TV+ won its first Emmy in the category, ending a three-year streak HBO had going for it.

Notable Ineligible Series: “Summer of Soul,” “Attica,” and “Writing With Fire” (all of which are ineligible for the Emmys after pursuing Oscars earlier this year)

This article will be updated throughout the season, along with all our predictions, so make sure to keep checking IndieWire for the latest news from the 2022 Emmys race. The nomination round of voting will take place from June 16 to June 27, with the official Emmy nominations to be announced on Tuesday, July 12. The Creative Arts Emmy Awards will be given out over two consecutive nights on Saturday, September 3 and Sunday, September 4, with an edited presentation on the ceremonies to be broadcast on Saturday, Sept. 10, at 8:00 p.m. Et on Fxx. Finally, the 74rd Annual...

Opening her masterclass at doc film festival Visions du Réel in Switzerland, cinematographer and filmmaker Kirsten Johnson – an Emmy and Sundance award winner for “Dick Johnson Is Dead” – started by naming each and every member of the technical crew on set.

“What I often find upsetting with cinema is that we forget to acknowledge all the people it takes to make these moments together. I learnt that through being a cameraperson, and I’m interested in understanding why we want to reduce it to just one person, because there’s something beautiful about the fact that all of these humans, collectively, help us be here today,” she said, employing her favorite word to describe her work, “Cameraperson,” which is also the title of second feature film.

Over three decades, Johnson has worked on some 60 films as a cinematographer, for the likes of Michael Moore and Laura Poitras, made a couple...

Festival line-up includes 84 world premieres.

Elizabeth, the feature documentary directed by the late Roger Michell, heads the programme of the 53rd edition of Switzerland’s Visions du Réel (VdR) film festival.

The film will play as a special screening out of competition at the non-fiction festival in Nyon. Elizabeth looks at the life of Queen Elizabeth II, the longest-serving female head of state in history.

Elizabeth comes to VdR following a world premiere at Belgium’s Ostend Film Festival earlier this month.

It is produced by Kevin Loader for the UK’s Free Range Films, with Embankment Films handling sales...

Festival line-up includes 84 world premieres.

Elizabeth, the feature documentary directed by the late Roger Michell, will have its world premiere at the 53rd edition of Switzerland’s Visions du Réel (VdR) film festival.

The film will play as a special screening out of competition at the non-fiction festival in Nyon. Elizabeth looks at the life of Queen Elizabeth II, the longest-serving female head of state in history.

It is produced by Kevin Loader for the UK’s Free Range Films, with Embankment Films handling sales and Signature distributing in the UK and Ireland.

It is one of 84 world premieres on the VdR line-up,...

Independent film supporter Rooftop Films announced the 2022 Filmmaker Fund winners February 28, exclusively on IndieWire.

The prestigious Water Tower Feature Film Cash Grant was awarded to “The 40-Year-Old Version” writer-director-producer-star Radha Blank, for her upcoming untitled dark dramedy.

Environmental director Eleanor Mortimer also won a Water Tower grant for an untitled deep sea taxonomy documentary, which “follows biologists through the intricate process of discovering deep-sea species as they piece together the unknown ecosystems of the largest biome on the planet.”

The $15,000 grants are made possible by generous support from the Laurence W. Levine Foundation.

The Rooftop Filmmakers Fund grants are available to Rooftop Films alumni directors who have previously had their work screened during the annual Summer Series in New York City. Blank screened her debut feature, “The Forty-Year-Old Version,” with Rooftop Films in 2020 at the Queens Drive-In. Mortimer screened her award-winning short film “Territory” at Rooftop Films in 2016.

This year,...

Most of us eventually have to think about the death of our elderly parents. Even though it's 'natural' (generally children outlive their parents), both the practical considerations and the emotional toll can make many of us not want to think about this sad fact of life. Cinematographer and documentarian Kirsten Johnson, being a storyteller, decided to take a different route. And how lucky we are that she did, as the work she created from that love and curiousity is surely one of the best documentaries of recent years. Criterion's release of Dick Johnson is Dead might seem a little fast (just two years since its premiere at Sundance), and yet one could argue - well, I would argue - that we need it. Johnson's exploration...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

The Producers Guild of America (PGA) announced the eight nominees for its 2022 Best Documentary award on Friday, December 10. The winner will be revealed at the 33rd Annual PGA Awards which will take place on Saturday, February 26, 2022. The remaining Producers Guild Awards nominations, including those for the Oscar bellwether Best Picture, will be unveiled on Thursday, January 27, 2022. The eight documentary features in the running are:

Ascension

The First Wave

Flee

In The Same Breath

The Rescue

Simple As Water

Summer Of Soul

Writing With Fire

The PGA nomination is an important step on the path to Oscar glory. Five of the last six eventual Oscar champs for Best Documentary Feature were nominated first by the producers guild, including last year’s “My Octopus Teacher,” which took home both prizes. The PGA win was the film’s first major accolade after missing nominations from prestigious non-fiction bellwethers Cinema Eye Honors and the International Documentary Association.

Jewish Story Partners, the non-profit film fund that launched six months ago, announced its second round of grant recipients on Monday. The winners came after an open submissions call that saw a 226% increase in participation from the first round.

An additional $280,000 has been awarded this year, bringing Jsp’s 2021 spend to $500,000 as they identify nonfiction work telling diverse Jewish stories. International filmmakers and fiction projects will be sought in the future. The group anticipates to hand out $800,000 in 2022 and $1 million by 2023.

New funders include the Lynn and Jules Kroll Fund for Jewish Documentary Films, Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, Kronhill Pletka Foundation and Koret Foundation.

Monday’s grants will fund noted documentary filmmakers including: Kate Amend, Marilyn Ness, Pratibha Parmar, Dan Sturman and Ondi Timoner.

“Jewish documentary films are a window into the richness and complexity of the arc of Jewish history and Jewish lives today,” said Lynn and...

An array of the most acclaimed documentaries of the last 50 years bear the stamp of one singular talent: Joan Churchill, filmmaker and cinematographer.

Her first credit, in 1970, came as a camera operator on Gimme Shelter, the classic documentary about the Rolling Stones at Altamont directed by the Maysles Brothers and Charlotte Zwerin. She’s been shooting films ever since, including Jimi at Berkeley (1971); Chuck Berry: Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll (1987); Kurt & Courtney (1998); Biggie & Tupac (2002); Shut Up & Sing, the 2006 doc about the Dixie Chicks, and the Oscar-nominated Last Days in Vietnam (2014).

She also co-directed a number of award-winning films with her former husband Nick Broomfield, including Soldier Girls (1981); Lily Tomlin (1986); Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer (2003), and 2011’s Sarah Palin: You Betcha!

In honor of her career in cinema, Churchill is being recognized with the Lifetime Achievement Award at Doc NYC, the country’s largest all-documentary festival, which opens today.

The Critics Choice Association has announced nominees for the sixth annual Critics Choice Documentary Awards.

The awards cover documentaries released in theaters, on TV and on major digital platforms. The awards gala takes place Nov. 14 in Brooklyn, N.Y.

“Ascension” and “Summer of Soul, both from first-time documentarians, led the nominations with six each. “Becoming Cousteau” and “The Rescue” both received five nods each.

“This has been and continues to be a fantastic year for documentary storytelling. And the number of first-time feature documentarians in the mix of nominees, alongside proven veterans, shows that nonfiction cinema continues to have a very bright future,” said Christopher Campbell, President of the Critics Choice Association Documentary Branch. “Our world, from its most amazing wonders to its greatest challenges, is being reflected back on the screen so immediately and creatively by today’s filmmakers, and it’s a tremendous honor for us to recognize all of their achievements.

The Critics Choice Association (Cca) has announced the nominees for the sixth annual Critics Choice Documentary Awards (Ccda). This year’s winners will be revealed at a gala on Sunday, November 14, 2021, in Brooklyn, NY. The awards honor the best achievements in nonfiction released in theaters, on TV, or on major digital platforms.

Both films by first-time documentarians, “Ascension” and “Summer of Soul” lead this year’s nominations with six each. “Ascension,” a look at the Chinese dream across social classes, is also up for Documentary Feature, Director (Jessica Kingdon), First Feature, Cinematography, Editing, and Score. Meanwhile, “Summer of Soul” is up for Documentary Feature, Best Director (Ahmir “Questlove’ Thompson), First Documentary, Editing, Archival Documentary, and Music Documentary.

“Becoming Cousteau” and “The Rescue” also picked up five nominations each.

Last year, “Dick Johnson Is Dead” took home the Cca’s top award for Best Documentary as well as the Best Director award for Kirsten Johnson.

Netflix’s awards hopefuls Robert Greene’s “Procession” and Alonso Ruizpalacios’ “A Cop Movie” are heading to Manhattan’s Paris Theater as part of its “New Directions in Documentary” series.

Both hybrid features, which are vying for a spot on this year’s Academy Award doc shortlist, will screen alongside previously celebrated form-bending docus in the upcoming series beginning Oct. 15.

Since 2019 Netflix has operated the 571-seat venue, which the streaming company uses year-round for exclusive theatrical engagements, premieres, special events, retrospectives, and filmmaker appearances.

Curated by Paris Theater programmer David Schwartz, the five-day public event will highlight and celebrate docus that combine elements of fiction and non-fiction into the fabric of their storytelling.

“ ‘Procession’ and ‘A Cop Movie’ are exciting and inventive movies that heighten the documentary form,” says Schwartz. “They find innovative ways to explore truth through deeply personal and dramatic subjects. Their work transcends the formulaic with rigorous fidelity to vision,...

“Boys State,” “Dick Johnson Is Dead,” The Social Dilemma,” and “76 Days” all won Emmys last weekend during the Creative Arts ceremonies, but they share another distinction: They are the last documentaries able to win a statuette from the Television Academy for the same nonfiction film that successfully qualified for Academy Award consideration.

The Television Academy shut down the controversial practice of awards double-dipping earlier this year, decreeing that, beginning in 2022, any documentary placed on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences viewing platform for Oscar shortlist consideration, “will be deemed a theatrical motion picture and thus ineligible for the Emmy competition.”

The straightforward rule is expected to have major awards-season ramifications for documentaries, and filmmakers surveyed by Variety about the subject have mixed feelings about it. For decades, documentary filmmakers and the companies that back their work have campaigned for Emmy statuettes after a fight for a little gold man,...

Two years and four months after MTV launched the MTV Documentary Films division headed by Sheila Nevins, the former longtime president of HBO Documentary Films, the unit landed its first Emmy Award with 76 Days.

The film, produced by Hao Wu and Jean Tsien, on Sunday during the Creative Arts Emmys won the Exceptional Merit In Documentary Filmmaking category, which also included Dick Johnson Is Dead and Welcome to Chechnya.

76 Days, which Hao Wu also co-directed, tells the story of the Wuhan lockdown in early 2020, looking behind the frontlines of the crisis in four hospitals to explore the human stories of health care workers and patients who struggle to survive the pandemic.

Emmys Scorecard: Wins By Network & Program After Creative Arts Ceremonies

Accepting the award, Hao Wu thanked his co-directors, Anonymous and Weixi Chen, “who took enormous personal risk filming in Wuhan at the start of the outbreak.”

Nevins,...

That’s a wrap on all three of the Creative Arts Emmy Awards shows, so let the music play!

“RuPaul’s Drag Race,” the reality competition series which is hosted by drag queen RuPaul Charles, won big with five Emmys in several categories, including Outstanding Casting for a Reality Program, Outstanding Directing for a Reality Program and Outstanding Host for a Reality or Competition Program (which is RuPaul’s sixth straight Emmy win for the category).

Also, to further the franchise’s stardom, “RuPaul’s Drag Race Untucked,” a behind-the-scenes spinoff of the reality series, won the unstructured reality category for the first time.

None of this weekend’s three Creative Arts shows were televised. Next Saturday, a highlights show of sorts will air on Fxx starting at 8 p.m. Et/Pt.

The *real* Emmys, hosted by Cedric the Entertainer, air live next Sunday, Sept. 19, starting at 8 p.m. Et/5 p.

The 73rd Primetime Emmys take place on September 19 and air live coast-to-coast on CBS. But the majority of trophies for TV’s highest honor will be handed out at the three Creative Arts Emmy ceremonies that take place in the weekend prior. On Saturday, September 11, and Sunday, September 12, the television academy handed out its Creative Arts Emmy Awards, honoring the best behind-the-scenes artists as well as achievements in animation, documentaries, reality TV, variety, and short form programming.

Saturday’s single ceremony is devoted to crafts while Sunday has back-to-back events with the afternoon focused on reality and documentaries and the evening on acting, music and variety.

Scroll down for the complete 2021 Creative Arts Emmy winners list. Winners are noted with an X and in gold.

Guest Acting

Best Comedy Guest Actress

Yvette Nicole Brown, “A Black Lady Sketch Show”

Issa Rae, “A Black Lady Sketch Show”

Jane Adams, “Hacks”

Maya Rudolph,...

The Primetime Emmys ceremony will broadcast on Sunday night, September 19, but the vast majority of awards will already have been presented by then. The Creative Arts Emmys go out over the course of three ceremonies on September 11 and 12, honoring the best in nonfiction, variety, animation, guest acting, behind-the-scenes crafts and much more. More than a thousand Gold Derby users have been predicting the winners in 27 of those categories. Scroll down for their complete predictions by category listed in order of our racetrack odds. Our projected winners are highlighted in gold.

SEEEmmy revenge for Oscar-snubbed documentaries? ‘Welcome to Chechnya’ neck-and-neck with ‘Dick Johnson is Dead’ in our odds

First and foremost, our users are betting on a good weekend for “Saturday Night Live.” It’s already the most awarded series in Emmy history, and just among the categories we’re predicting it’s anticipated to win four times: Best Variety Sketch Series,...

HBO’s “Welcome to Chechnya” and Netflix’s “Dick Johnson is Dead” were strong contenders for Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars this past year, but neither made the cut with the motion picture academy. However, the Oscars’ loss is the Emmys’ gain as both nonfiction films are nominated for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking, along with another film that just missed out at the Oscars, “76 Days.” But which film will win?

Unlike in past years, there are no Oscar nominees in this year’s Emmy lineup; documentaries used to be anomalous in that they were often eligible at both events. But the Emmys instituted a new rule stating that “any programs that have been nominated for an Oscar are no longer eligible to enter the Primetime Emmy Awards competition.” So no more cases like “Free Solo” winning the Oscar and then sweeping the Emmys a few months later.

Updated with more details: Normally on the opening day of a Morgan Neville film, the talk would be about box office potential—after all, his 2018 Mr. Rogers documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor? earned an astounding $23 million.

But as Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain hits theaters today, focus has shifted to controversy over the Oscar-winning director’s use of AI in the film to simulate Bourdain “voicing” several lines that the late chef, author and TV host wrote but did not record. The issue has triggered a debate inside and outside the doc community, with some accusing Neville of committing an unacknowledged “deep fake.”

“This sucks!” Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel exclaimed on Twitter. Critic Sean Burns tweeted, “I feel like this tells you all you need to know about the ethics of the people behind this project.”

The AI ethical debate might never have happened were it not for the sharp eyes,...

The Television Academy is making a small, but meaningful change in how it recognizes gender-nonbinary performers in the Emmy competition. Effective immediately, nominees and/or winners in any performer category can request that their nomination certificate and Emmy statuette carry the term “performer” in place of “actor” or actress.”

The org isn’t abolishing its actor, actress, supporting actor or supporting actress categories, but it is acknowledging that “no performer category titled ‘actor’ or ‘actress’ has ever had a gender requirement for submissions.”

The move comes several years after “Billions” star Asia Kate Dillon, the first gender-nonbinary performer to play a nonbinary character on a major TV show, first asked the TV Academy in 2017 to clarify its gender distinctions. Ultimately, Dillon asked to be entered into the “supporting actor” category at the Emmys.

Last year, in an open letter to the SAG Awards, Dillon asked that kudocast to also drop its gendered acting categories,...

Remember when National Geographic’s “Free Solo” won the Academy Award for documentary in 2018 and then went on to win six Emmys, including directing for a documentary/nonfiction program? Or when ESPN’s “O.J.: Made in America” did the same thing in 2016?

The loophole that allowed docs to somehow compete in both Oscars and Emmys was always a bit bizarre. It couldn’t happen in scripted, where the rules have been ironclad: If you were released theatrically first, you’re a movie; if you’re on television, you’re, well, TV.

In documentary, though, it’s often TV outlets such as HBO, PBS or Nat Geo commissioning and funding the projects to air on their networks — making them, arguably, TV projects. But if they’re screened in theaters, the Oscars can claim them too. “Why a television documentary is eligible for AMPAS’ feature awards is a question for AMPAS,” the...

“Mank” is the big leader at the 2021 Oscars with 10 nominations, but that wasn’t the case at the 36th Film Independent Spirit Awards. The nomination leader at this ceremony was Eliza Hittman’s acclaimed “Never Rarely Sometimes Always,” which the Academy shut out from the Oscars. The same goes for other beloved Spirit Award nominees like “First Cow,” “Miss Juneteenth,” and “The Assistant.” In other words, the Indie Spirit Awards were a breath of fresh air in this elongated awards season where underdog indie contenders finally get their due in the spotlight.

“Minari” also preformed strong at the Indie Spirits, earning six nominations to match its six Oscar nominations. Fellow Oscar nominees “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and “Nomadland” each picked up five Spirit Award nominations. Netflix was the most nominated studio with 16 nominations, followed by Focus Features with 10 and A24 with 9.

“Nomadland” was the big winner, taking home the prizes...

The last major awards show before the Oscars has finally arrived, the 36th Independent Spirit Awards. The virtual ceremony aired Thursday, April 22 on IFC at 7 p.m. Pt/10 p.m. Et and was hosted by “Saturday Night Live” star Melissa Villaseñor. The Spirit Awards celebrated the best in indie filmmaking for the 2020 calendar year, and this year they invited TV shows to the party, too. Don’t forget, only American-made fare with budgets under $20 million were eligible for consideration. Winners were chosen by all of Film Independent’s eligible members, including industry insiders and any movie fans who signed up for membership.

Heading into the ceremony, “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” was the nominations leader with seven overall bids. “Minari” came in right behind it with six noms, followed by “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and “Nomadland” (the Oscar front-runner) with five bids each. On the TV side, both “Little America” and...

The 2021 Film Independent Spirit Awards are finally upon us, after the nominations were announced three months ago, and the ceremony is taking place just a few days ahead of the Academy Awards. This year, the Spirit Awards won’t be held midday in a hangar in Santa Monica, but will instead live-stream on IFC on Thursday, April 22 at 7:00 p.m. Pt/10:00 p.m. Et. In addition to the linear broadcast, the Spirit Awards will also stream simultaneously on AMC+. Following the broadcast, the full awards ceremony will be made available on demand across AMC+ and IFC platforms starting Friday, April 23. This year’s ceremony will be hosted by “Saturday Night Love” comedian Melissa Villaseñor.

If you’re cord cutter who doesn’t have cable, you can watch IFC live with one of these streaming services, many of which offer a free trial: Philo, fuboTV, Sling TV, YouTube TV,...

It’s almost time for the 36th Independent Spirit Awards, which will celebrate the best in indie filmmaking for the 2020 calendar year. Remember, only American-made movies with budgets under $20 million were eligible for consideration. Winners will be chosen by all of Film Independent’s eligible members, including industry insiders and any movie fans who sign up for membership. So who will win? Read on to see what we’re predicting to prevail when this year’s trophies are handed out Thursday, April 22 in a virtual ceremony airing on IFC at 7 p.m. Pt/10 p.m. Et.

Gold Derby’s 2021 Spirit Awards odds are based on the combined forecasts of more than 2,300 Gold Derby readers, including Experts we’ve polled from major media outlets, Editors who cover awards year-round for this website, Top 24 Users who did the best predicting last year’s winners, All-Star Users who had the best prediction scores over the last two years,...

The 36th Film Independent Spirit Awards are set to take place this week as a welcome reprieve to this elongated Oscar season. Unlike the Academy Awards, where David Fincher’s “Mank” reigns supreme with 10 nominations, the 2021 Indie Spirit Awards are dominated by Eliza Hittman’s “Never Rarely Sometimes Always,” which was shut out of the Oscar nominations. “Never Rarely” boasts seven Spirit Award nominations this year, including Best Feature and Best Director.

Unlike the Oscars, the Spirit Awards also boast a Best First Feature category to honor the greatest directorial debuts of the last year. The 2021 nominees in this category are “I Carry You With Me,” “The 40 Year Old Version,” “Sound of Metal,” “Miss Juneteenth,” and “Nine Days.” Only “Sound of Metal” broke into the Oscars among these nominees.

As always, the budget cutoff for films to be eligible for the Spirit Awards is $22.5 million. For this reason, several high...

“The Trial of the Chicago 7” got a big boost in its bid for Best Editing at the Oscars with a win at the Ace Golden Eddie Awards on April 17. It prevailed in the drama race at these awards bestowed by American Cinema Editors over two of its Oscar rivals — “Nomadland” and “Sound of Metal” — as well as “Mank” and “Minari.”

Another of the Oscar nominees, “Promising Young Woman,” lost the comedy/musical category to “Palm Springs.” The other contenders in that race were “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm,” “I Care a Lot” and “On the Rocks.”

Oscar watchers were sure to be watching Saturday’s virtual ceremony. These kudos have previewed of the 18 out of the last 30 Best Picture winners and a whopping 22 of the last 30 Film Editing Oscar champs. Not surprisingly, the Golden Eddies are also prescient when it comes to predicting the five Film Editing Oscar slots. Four of...

Exclusive: With New York City gradually emerging from the worst of the coronavirus pandemic, one film-biz sign of life is a series of Oscar-nominated movies hitting the city’s big screens.

Megaplexes and arthouses alike have been in reopening mode over the past month. In-person screenings for Zoomed-out Academy members and press are now possible for the first time since February 2020. With the April 20 deadline for Oscar ballots looming, bookings are on the rise, even at one newer spot in the awards-season mix: the Queens Drive-In.

“Anything that reminds people of the communal experience, we’re all for it,” one Oscar consultant told Deadline. “We have all been stuck inside, so now even if we have to get creative and deal with safety restrictions, it’s totally worth it to try to break through and make a connection.”

The Paris Theatre on 58th Street, which was rescued by Netflix just before Covid-19 struck,...

Many of your friends have seen “My Octopus Teacher,” which registered frequently among the top 10 movies on Netflix in the U.S., Israel, South Africa, and Australia. Until it proved a global hit, Netflix didn’t intend to push this sleeper pickup for Oscar contention. The movie never played festivals and was barely reviewed when it was released in September 2020. Today, otherwise disengaged Academy voters are now singing its praises.

In order to vote in a category, voters are supposed to see all the contenders (ballots are due April 20). The discerning (and increasingly international) documentary branch voted the South African “My Octopus Teacher” into the final five nominees — unusual for such an accessible and manipulative heart-tugger. Now, an Oscar win for the Critics Choice, IDA, and PGA-winner (and DGA and BAFTA nominee) seems like a foregone conclusion.

Why? During lockdown viewers watched freediver Craig Foster take his daily constitutional in...

Many of your friends have seen “My Octopus Teacher,” which registered frequently among the top 10 movies on Netflix in the U.S., Israel, South Africa, and Australia. Until it proved a global hit, Netflix didn’t intend to push this sleeper pickup for Oscar contention. The movie never played festivals and was barely reviewed when it was released in September 2020. Today, otherwise disengaged Academy voters are now singing its praises.

In order to vote in a category, voters are supposed to see all the contenders (ballots are due April 20). The discerning (and increasingly international) documentary branch voted the South African “My Octopus Teacher” into the final five nominees — unusual for such an accessible and manipulative heart-tugger. Now, an Oscar win for the Critics Choice, IDA, and PGA-winner (and DGA and BAFTA nominee) seems like a foregone conclusion.

Why? During lockdown viewers watched freediver Craig Foster take his daily constitutional in...

Soul, My Octopus Teacher, The Crown, Hamilton among other winners.

Searchlight Pictures’ Nomadland has added the PGA Award to its trophy cabinet as it sets its sights on the Academy Awards on April 25.

Mollye Asher, Dan Janvey, Frances McDormand, Peter Spears, and Chloé Zhao – riding high in a history-making campaign – beat nine other sets of producers in a strong field to claim the Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures at the virtual 32nd Annual Producers Guild Awards on Wednesday evening (March 24).

The Baftas await on April 11, followed by the Oscars two weeks later that will...

The Producers Guild of America Awards were handed out during a virtual ceremony on Wednesday, March 24. Throughout their 31-year history, the PGA has proven to be one of the most successful Oscar bellwethers around. A whopping 21 of their picks have gone onto win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. That success rate flows from the fact that both the guild and the academy use the same voting system – the preferential ballot – to determine a winner. Scroll down for the 2021 Producers Guild of America Awards winners list.

This year, seven out of the 10 PGA contenders earned Oscar nominations for Best Picture: “Judas and the Black Messiah,” “Mank,” “Minari,” “Nomadland,” “Promising Young Woman,” “Sound of Metal” and “The Trial of the Chicago 7.” The eighth Best Picture Oscar nominee – “The Father” – was missing from the PGA lineup, with “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm,” “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and “One Night in Miami” rounding out the guild’s top 10 list.

When Oscar nominations were announced March 15, mainstream-media headlines focused on the usual topics: best picture, the four acting categories and Hollywood’s current obsession, inclusion. These are all worth talking about, but the Msm virtually ignores one key element every year: The artisans.

Those individuals are key to a movie’s success, as everyone in the industry knows. The artisans are also important to Oscar: They constitute one-third of the 9,000-plus voters in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, which means their votes are crucial.

These nine categories also beef up a contender’s bragging rights. Netflix’s “Mank” was the nom leader with 10 — and six of those were in below-the-line races. Of the other seven best picture contenders, each had at least one Btl nomination.

Aside from “Mank’s” team, almost all of the artisans who worked on the year’s best-pic roster are first-time Oscar contenders, ranging...

The vast majority of successful fiction films begin with a good script. Often in documentary the opposite is true—the creative breakthrough comes in throwing out the “script” and adjusting as reality unfolds.

That theme emerged as producers of the seven theatrical documentaries nominated for Producers Guild of America Awards convened Saturday to discuss their experiences. Ramona S. Diaz, producer-director of A Thousand Cuts, said her original idea was for a “Robert Altman-esque” ensemble story about life in the Philippines under the authoritarian rule of President Rodrigo Duterte. But then the journalist Maria Ressa, who butted heads with Duterte as Diaz filmed, emerged as the central focus.

“As a documentary filmmaker I’m really aware of the shifts in the story and how I need to pivot,” Diaz explained during the Zoom roundtable discussion. “Sometimes I get very attached to this idea of this ensemble cast but then when...

Oscar nominations morning has come and gone, and TheWrap takes a look at nods that came as a surprise — and who was snubbed.

Snub: Regina King

Regina King was shockingly left out of the Best Director category for “One Night in Miami.” Instead, Thomas Vinterberg took her place for directing “Another Round” (which we discuss below). King had been nominated in the category at the Globes, as well as the Critics Choice Awards.

Surprise: Lakeith Stanfield in Best Supporting

The actor received a surprise nomination in the category Best Supporting Actor… alongside his costar, Daniel Kaluuya, who has been sweeping the awards season for his role in “Judas and the Black Messiah.” David Straithairn, for his role in “Nomadland,” was left out, as was Chadwick Boseman for his role in “Da 5 Bloods.” Of course, Boseman received a Best Actor nod for his role in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.”

Surprise:...

The 15 shortlisted contenders for Best Documentary Feature showcase the diversity and power in vérité storytelling with such a vast array of subjects and visions. From racial injustice and voter suppression to government conspiracies and emotionally connecting with animals, these stories, from all corners of life, illuminate the world we live in today.

Both the 15 semi-finalists and five nominees were determined by preferential voting. Final voting for the winner is widened to all academy members who attest to having watched all the nominees. Let’s take a closer look at the 15 films and their performances at the precursor awards.

The film that tackles 2020’s most pressing issue is “76 Days,” which gives an insider view of overwhelmed frontline workers caring for patients battling Covid-19 in Wuhan hospitals during its citywide lockdown. The direct cinema filmmaking highlights the doctors and nurses’ nonstop care, sustained compassion, and waves of anguish, all while donning...