Cutie and the Boxer

Forty feature films and six shorts are among the nominees for the 7th Cinema Eye Honors for Nonfiction Filmmaking.  Zachary Heinzerling’s Cutie and the Boxer led all films with six nominations, while The Act of Killing received five. Heinzerling and the directing duos from two films nominated for Outstanding Feature –Leviathan‘s Castaing-Taylor & Paravel and After Tiller‘s Shane and Wilson – all led individual nominees with four nominations apiece. Making Cinema Eye history with his nomination in the feature film category, Lucien Castaing-Taylor becomes the first person to be nominated for Outstanding Feature after having been previously nominated for Outstanding Debut (he was nominated in 2011 for Sweetgrass).

Five films are in the running for Cinema Eye’s top award, Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking: Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing, Martha Shane and Lana Wilson’s After Tiller, Zachary Heinzerling’s Cutie and the Boxer, Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel’s Leviathan and Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell. 

Nominees for Outstanding Achievement in Direction included Alan Berliner for First Cousin Once Removed, Tinatin Gurchiani for The Machine Which Makes Everything Disappear, Oppenheimer for The Act of Killing, Shane and Wilson for After Tiller, Castaing-Taylor and Paravel for Leviathan and Polley for Stories We Tell. This marks the first time in Cinema Eye history that more women were nominated for the Directing Award than their male counterparts. In addition, of the 11 individuals nominated for Cinema Eye’s top Feature Film award, 7 are women.

Cinema Eye also announced nominees for their inaugural award for Nonfiction Films Made for Television. Four of the six nominees came from HBO Documentary Films, including Lucy Walker’s The Crash Reel, Dawn Porter’s Gideon’s Army, Alex Gibney’s Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God and Sebastian Junger’s Which Way to the Front Line From Here: The Life and Times of Tim Hetherington. PBS nabbed the other two nominations, one for Susan Lacy’s Inventing David Geffen (American Masters) and Christine Turner’s Homegoings (POV). As the new television award recognizes the key producers from the network, the nominations for HBO Documentary Films’ Sheila Nevins (with four nods) and Sara Bernstein (with three) mark a first in Cinema Eye history – multiple nominations within the same category (but for different films).

The nomination for Sebastian Junger’s film about Tim Hetherington is notable. Junger and Hetherington were both nominated for two Cinema Eye awards in 2011 for their film Restrepo, and Hetherington posthumously won the Cinema Eye Honor for Nonfiction Short in 2012 for his film, Diary.

In the short film category, six films have been nominated, including the notable inclusion of Laura Poitras’Death of a Prisoner, which first appeared as a New York Times Op-Doc. Poitras won the Cinema Eye Honor for Direction in 2011 for her film, The Oath. She’s been at the center of one of the biggest global news stories of 2013 – the revelation of Edward Snowden’s identity and the secret spying by the United States government on American citizens and international allies.

Ten contenders were named for Cinema Eye’s Audience Choice Prize, which includes many of the most talked about and beloved documentaries of the year, including Morgan Neville’s 20 Feet From Stardom, Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s Blackfish, Greg “Freddy” Camalier’s Muscle Shoals, Mona Eldaeif and Jehane Noujaim’s Rafea: Solar Mama, Dave Grohl’s Sound City and Jehane Noujaim’s The Square. The double nomination for Noujaim in the category was another first – a director with two films nominated in the same category in the same year.

Winners of the 7th Annual Cinema Eye Honors will be announced on January 8, 2014 as Cinema Eye returns, for the fourth straight year, to the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, New York.  

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 “AQUEL NO ERA YO (THAT WASN’T ME),” Esteban Crespo, director

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the 10 live action short films that will advance in the voting process for the 86th Academy Awards®.  One hundred twenty pictures had originally qualified in the category. 

The 10 films are listed below in alphabetical order by title, with their production companies:

“AQUEL NO ERA YO (THAT WASN’T ME),” Esteban Crespo, director (Producciones Africanauan)

“AVANT QUE DE TOUT PERDRE (JUST BEFORE LOSING EVERYTHING),” Xavier Legrand, director, and Alexandre Gavras, producer (KG Productions)

“DVA (TWO),” Mickey Nedimovic, director, and Henner Besuch, director of photography (Filoufilm Dani Barsch)

“HELIUM,” Anders Walter, director, and Kim Magnusson, producer (M & M Productions)

“KUSH,” Shubhashish Bhutiani, director (Red Carpet Moving Pictures)

“PITÄÄKÖ MUN KAIKKI HOITAA? (DO I HAVE TO TAKE CARE OF EVERYTHING?),” Selma Vilhunen, director, and Kirsikka Saari, screenwriter (Tuffi Films)

“RECORD/PLAY,” Jesse Atlas, director, and Thom Fennessey, executive producer (Collaboration Factory)

“THROAT SONG,” Miranda de Pencier, director (Northwood Productions)

“TIGER BOY,” Gabriele Mainetti, director (Goon Films)

“THE VOORMAN PROBLEM,” Mark Gill, director, and Baldwin Li, producer (Honlodge Productions)

The Short Films and Feature Animation Branch Reviewing Committee viewed all the eligible entries for the preliminary round of voting at screenings held in Los Angeles.  

Short Films and Feature Animation Branch members will now select three to five nominees from among the 10 titles on the shortlist.  Branch screenings will be held in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco in December.

The 86th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Thursday, January 16, 2014, at 5:30 a.m. PT in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2013 will be presented on Oscar Sunday, March 2, 2014, at the Dolby Theatre® at Hollywood & Highland Center® and televised live on the ABC Television Network.  The presentation also will be televised live in more than 225 countries and territories worldwide. 

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