Oscar 2004: Documentary Shortlist
by Andre Soares
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Tuesday (Nov. 17) a list of twelve films that are up for the Academy Award for best feature-length documentary of 2004. They are: Born into Brothels, about the children of Calcutta prostitutes; Home of the Brave, the story of murdered civil-rights activist Viola Liuzzo; the biography Howard Zinn: You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train; Academy Award-winner Jessica Yu’s In the Realms of the Unreal, a portrait of artist and janitor Henry Darger; Sundance Film Festival opener Riding Giants, a documentary about surfing; and The Ritchie Boys, the story of German Jews who were trained as an elite U.S. intelligence unit during World War II.
Also, The Story of the Weeping Camel, the tale of a camel calf and its owners, a family of Mongolian nomads; Super Size Me, an indictment against the fast-food business (and fast-food eaters); Tell Them Who You Are, filmmaker Mark Wexler’s look at his relationship with his father, Oscar-winning cinematographer Haskell Wexler (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, America, America); Touching the Void, a mixture of interviews and dramatic recreations that depict the fate of mountaineers Joe Simpson and Simon Yates while on a mountain-climbing trip in Peru; Tupac: Resurrection, an examination of the life of slain rapper Tupac Shakur; and Twist of Faith, about a man confronting his past sexual abuse at the hands of a priest.
Conspicuously absent from the Academy list, whether due to eligibility or other issues, are many of the Iraq War-related political documentaries that have surfaced this year, including Outfoxed, Control Room, and Uncovered: the War on Iraq.
Fahrenheit 9/11’s director / producer Michael Moore, winner of the 2002 Best Documentary Oscar for Bowling for Columbine, did not submit his blockbuster documentary in that category. Fahrenheit 9/11, however, is eligible in other categories, including Best Picture.
The 12 films were chosen by the academy’s documentary branch, which also will select the five nominees.
Oscar nominations will be announced on January 25, and the awards ceremony will take place on February 27.
Addendum: Political documentaries such as Robert Greenwald’s Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism, an exposé of the Fox News Channel, and Uncovered: The War on Iraq, about the mission not accomplished of the title; and Jehane Noujaim’s Control Room, an examination of the Al-Jazeera network were noticeably missing from the final list of 12 feature-length documentaries eligible for the 2004 Academy Awards in the Documentary Feature category.
An Academy spokesperson told me that Outfoxed, the pro-John Kerry Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry, and the anti-Kerry Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal were never submitted for Academy consideration. Control Room and Uncovered: The War on Iraq were disqualified because they have already been shown on television. That leaves only Nickolas Perry and Harry Thomason’s The Hunting of the President, with Bill Clinton as the presidential prey and far right-wingers as the ideological hunters, which was indeed eligible but failed to make the final cut.
Comments
Leave a Reply
Note: All comments are moderated. Different views and opinions are welcome, but abusive/bigoted/flaming comments will NOT be approved. Also, please be aware that the Alternative Film Guide has NO contact information for the talent mentioned in this blog or any information pertaining to or access to distributors'/producers' film prints.
