It's been more than a week since this year's Oscar nominees were announced, but the documentary world is still reeling from this year's selection and trying to figure out what it means for the struggling industry. Notably, all of the filmmakers were international and most lacked distribution by major streamers. Netflix, Apple TV+, and Max's supposed favorites all failed to win slots in the final Oscar voting.
Doc Branch voters no longer seem impressed with the ability of major streamers to spend millions during elections, documentary film leader says varietyand in the view of some celebrities, may harbor resentment towards those who benefit from the heavy spending by streamers.
This year's feature nominees include Mstislav Chernov's 20 Days in Mariupol (PBS), Kauser Ben Hania's Four Daughters (Kino Lorber), and Nisha Pahuja's To Kill a Tiger (National Film Board of Canada, NFB), and Maite Alberdi's To Kill a Tiger (Kino Lorber). “Everlasting Memory” (MTV documentary film) and Moses Bwayo’s “Bobi Wine: The People’s President” (National Geographic, backed by Disney).
Ahead of nominations being announced on January 23, Matthew Heineman's Netflix documentary “American Symphony,” about musician Jon Batiste and his wife, and Davis Guggenheim's “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie” and “Going to” directed by Michelle Stevenson and Joe Brewster. Max's documentary Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project, narrated by Taraji P. Henson, was considered the frontrunner. The streamers behind each of these docs have spent millions of dollars on a variety of campaign items, including FYC ads, hosted intimate screening events for doc branch voters in New York and Los Angeles, and advertised billboards, prestigious Email from a fiction organization, served as a top Oscar consultant hired to improve film ratings. In addition to Doc, filmmakers from all over the world will also have a chance to promote their work.
“I think there's going to be a backlash against streamers and, frankly, the big promotion companies that are paid $15,000 a month and get paid when the films they're making get shortlisted or nominated,” Geralyn White-Dray said. says Faus, co-founder of document fund Impact Partners. “Document Branch members know that when they receive invitations to these expensive events and hundreds of pieces of mail that all cost money, these documents have huge amounts of money behind them. .”
But Cinetic Media's Jason Ishikawa says we need activists willing to pay these high costs.
“We all know what it's like to have to scrape together that $20,000 to launch an award campaign that never sees the light of day,” Ishikawa says. “Nobody's going to get that money back. If a distributor wants to spend 10 times that amount, what's the problem? I'm not saying they should be commended for doing that. , I feel like people just want the Doctor not to get promoted. They think that their egalitarian fantasies will allow these movies to rise to the top on their own, but that That's not true at all. These movies need a boost. He was behind me.)
Of course, streamers paying for big-ticket Oscar campaigns is nothing new. Searchlight Pictures and Hulu reportedly spent $12 million to acquire 2022 Best Documentary Feature Oscar winner Summer of Soul from Sundance in 2021. Disney subsequently spent millions of dollars on the film's Oscar campaign. Last year's winner, Navalny, had major support from CNN Pictures, HBO Max and Warner Bros. Pictures.
Why do American filmmakers make big-budget documentaries (such as Davis Guggenheim's Still: The Michael J. Fox Movie) and make movies that sell for millions of dollars from festivals like Telluride? One theory is that he will be making a documentary (“American Symphony'' directed by Matthew Heineman). was not nominated because of the deplorable state of the U.S. document market over the past two years. Most documentary makers have had to deal with shrinking budgets for commissioned documentaries and one-offs, and a significant reduction in distribution deals for independent films. The reality is that all but a handful of documentary filmmakers live paycheck to paycheck.
“There's a certain kind of resentment towards success,” Ishikawa says. “It's a little confusing. So many people in this industry (including in the film industry) have worked so hard to move this idea out of the ghetto of nonfiction, and it's so hard to see that effort being undermined.” I feel like it is.”
An Academy Award-winning documentary producer, who did not want to be named, agrees with Ishikawa's opinion. “It is extremely concerning to me that the Ph.D. category did not nominate a single film by an American filmmaker. It is also deeply disturbing to me that our Ph.D. I think it was a big mistake not to nominate some of the films. Many of us have worked hard to make great films that break out of the little ghetto that documentaries have been trapped in for so long. I love many of these films, but as a group, it puts us back in the ghetto. This is a terrible development for those of us who want to make great films that reach a wide audience.”
All five documentaries nominated for an Academy Award this year have a social issue element, and based on their Sundance sales, they may already be having an impact on the documentary market. Celebrity titles such as “Superman: The Christopher Reeve Story'' and “Will & Harper'' have been snapped up by the festival for big fees, while Netflix also has “American Symphony'' and “Stamped from the・Story” also failed to win an Oscar. Having bought acclaimed filmmaker Roger Ross Williams' “Beginning,'' he also has three of his very indie films without bold-faced names: “Daughters,'' “Ibelin,'' and “Skywalkers: A Love Story.'' I bought the documentary.
“It's hard to imagine[the nominations]not having an impact on companies like Netflix and Apple,” said Josh Brown, a sales agent at Submarine Entertainment who represented “Daughters.” “How will this year affect their ratings as they try to find movies that they love and have the potential to win awards (to buy)?”
Another possible factor is the dramatic increase in international chapter membership in recent years. After she became a member of the AMPAS Board of Directors in 2016, Williams spearheaded the expansion of the Documentary Division so that he represents 52 countries, making it the most geographically diverse of the Academy's 17 divisions. This is a diverse department. During his six years on the board, the defending Oscar winner worked with IDFA and others to grow the nonfiction category from about 300 filmmakers to more than 630, some of them based outside the United States. International voters make up only 30 percent of the world's voters. In the doc branch, many in the nonfiction community believe that international voters have great influence.
“American Symphony,'' “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie,'' “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project'' and Roger's film “Stamped from the Beginning'' were not nominated. That's what I thought when I saw “MLK/ FBI”) says.
But Julie Goldman of Motto Pictures, which produced the Oscar-nominated film “Forever,” believes it has more to do with preconceptions about how the vote will turn out.
“Although the percentage of voters from overseas is increasing, the majority of voters are still based in the United States,” Goldman said. “I think people and the general sector wanted to react and reward these (five nominated) films. Also, what happened was that people said, “Oh, that movie definitely got nominated.'' I think he was thinking, “I'm going to vote for another unlikely movie on the list that I like.'' I didn't expect it to happen in a big way. ”
The shortlist of documentaries will be narrowed down to five by a ranking selection vote of the films by chapter members. Everyone receives a vote and ranks the top candidates as the best documents. The ranked-choice voting system guarantees a nomination as long as a film is the top choice of about 10% of voters.
While no one would argue that the five documentaries nominated this year don't deserve to be nominated for an Academy Award, many in the nonfiction world believe that the voting system is run like the International Film category, which Academy members can choose from. I think it would be more fair if that were done. Participate and vote for the finalists and final nominees.
“I'm worried that that means it's basically going to be a popularity contest for movies that people have heard of in the overall voting,” Goldman says.
Another idea expressed by chapter members is to add an international feature documentary category in addition to the U.S. feature documentary category.
“That will never happen,” counters Goldman. “We have our fingernails in the documentary short story category.”
