One hundred fifty-nine features have been submitted for consideration in the Documentary Feature category for the 92nd Academy Awards®. Films submitted in the Documentary Feature category may also qualify for Academy Awards in other categories, including Best Picture.
Opening Night Film Just Mercy, with Michael B. Jordan as social justice warrior Brian Stevenson and Jamie Foxx as one of the first wrongly-convicted death row inmates he fought for, won the Virginia Film Festival Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature. Earning the audience award for Best Documentary Feature was Sing You a Brand New Song, a story about how the power of love and music can transcend even tragedy.
The International Documentary Association (IDA) announced the 35th Annual IDA Documentary Awards Nominees along with the Courage Under Fire Award honoree Waad Al-Kataeb, director and producer of For Sama. For the first time, the IDA will present an award for Best Director and, notably, all of the nominated films have female directors.
From acclaimed auteurs to emerging directors to visual artists that push the limits of documentary film, International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) announced 70 selected documentary film titles to the program sections Frontlight, Masters, Paradocs, Paradocs: Amsterdam Art Weekend at IDFA, and Best of Fests, plus a Lifetime Achievement Award for Jørgen Leth. The new selections include world premieres from Oeke Hoogendijk, Louise Detlefsen, Louise Kjeldsen, and Basir Mahmoud.
The 32nd Annual Virginia Film Festival will feature more than 150 films, including independent films along with hotly anticipated titles including Harriet, Just Mercy, Western Stars, Jojo Rabbit, Marriage Story, The Two Popes, The Report, Clemency, and Portrait Of A Lady On Fire. This year’s lineup also includes award-winning actor, writer, and director Ethan Hawke, noted actor Ann Dowd, international bestselling author John Grisham, actor Dennis Christopher, acclaimed filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu – plus more than 100 filmmakers in all.
The Heartland International Film Festival announced the official selections for its 28th edition, taking place October 10-20. Marielle Heller’s Tom Hanks’ starrer A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD was chosen as the Opening Night Gala film, and Destin Daniel Cretton’s JUST MERCY will screen as the Closing Night Gala selection. Noah Baumbach’s MARRIAGE STORY is set to be the Centerpiece Screening, and Fernando Meirelles’ THE TWO POPES will be the Showcase Screening.
The PBS documentary series Independent Lens, recently honored with two Peabody Awards, a Primetime Emmy nomination and 12 News & Documentary Emmy nominations, returns for a new season on Monday, October 28 with Made in Boise. The film is an engrossing look at the complex and controversial world of gestational surrogacy told through the stories of four women carrying babies for gay men and infertile couples in the conservative heartland of Idaho — the unofficial “surrogacy capital” of the United States.
With support from Sundance Institute’s Creative Distribution Fellowship, Tell It Media, Multitude Films and Fourth Act will distribute Jacqueline Olive’s award winning documentary Always in Season, winner of a Special Jury Prize for Moral Urgency at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. The documentary film will open in New York City on Friday, September 20th at The Metrograph, followed by runs in Los Angeles and select American Multi-Cinema Inc (AMC) theaters across the country. The broadcast premiere will air and stream on Independent Lens on PBS Winter 2020.
AFI DOCS has revealed its full slate of films for the 2019 festival with women dominating selections – 68% of slate features female producers, and 48% directors. The 17th edition will showcase 72 films representing 17 countries and runs June 19 to 23 in Washington, DC, and Silver Spring, MD.
The 2019 RiverRun International Film Festival announced the Awards with the top prizes going to Alice directed by Josephine Mackerras which won the Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature, along with the Peter Brunette Award for Best Director for Mackerras. The film also snagged the Re Vision and Independent Feature Film Award. The Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature went to American Factory directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert.
The 5th Annual Bentonville Film Festival will open on Wednesday, May 8, with Tom Donahue’s documentary THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING, executive produced by Geena Davis, and featuring her, along with Meryl Streep, Reese Witherspoon, Natalie Portman, Zoe Saldana, Rosario Dawson, Cate Blanchett, and many others as it takes an incisive look into the history, empirical evidence, and systemic forces that foster gender discrimination and thus reinforce disparity in our culture.
