As part of Screen International’s guide to the films to watch this awards season, we round up some of the key documentary contenders.
All That Breathes
Dir. Shaunak Sen
Winner of both Sundance’s world cinema grand jury prize for documentary and Cannes’ Golden Eye for best documentary, this lyrical second feature from India-based filmmaker and scholar Sen centres on two Muslim brothers who rescue birds of prey affected by environmental toxicity in New Delhi. Acquired by HBO Documentary Films after its Sundance premiere, the film had a limited US theatrical release in late October.
All The Beauty And The Bloodshed
Dir. Laura Poitras
This documentary about the artist Nan Goldin and her fight to extricate the Sackler name from world art institutions won the Golden Lion at Venice for Poitras (Citizenfour). With a push from US distributor Neon, the film has potential to break out of the documentary category and into best picture. Goldin, always confrontational in her life and work, reveals more of herself as an artist but also as a former addict and sex worker, as she hounds the museums that took money from the Purdue Pharma-owning Sackler family — made on the pain of the devastating US opioid epidemic.
Descendant
Dir. Margaret Brown
Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground is the big-name presenter of The Great Invisible director Brown’s look at how the discovery of the last known slave ship to arrive in the US affects a community in Alabama today. After a Sundance debut that won it the US documentary special jury award for creative vision, the Participant production was bought by Netflix, which gave the film a limited US theatrical release before it moved to the platform.
Fire Of Love
Dir. Sara Dosa
Another Sundance premiere and prize winner — taking the Jonathan Oppenheim editing award: US documentary — Fire Of Love uses footage from its subjects’ own archive to follow a French scientist couple’s career chasing and documenting volcanic eruptions. Snapped up by National Geographic and Neon, the film has taken more than $1m since its limited US theatrical launch in July, making it one of this year’s biggest box-office documentaries.
Good Night Oppy
Dir. Ryan White
Amazon Studios and Amblin Entertainment teamed up for this chronicle — employing interviews with scientists and engineers, NASA archive footage and CGI effects — of the 2003 mission that sent the Opportunity rover to Mars and kept it ‘alive’ for 15 years. Steered by The Case Against 8 director White, Good Night Oppy premiered at Telluride and is set for a limited US theatrical run in November.
The Janes
Dirs. Tia Lessin, Emma Pildes
Lessin (a documentary feature Oscar nominee in 2009 for Trouble The Water) and Pildes recount the story of a group of women in early-1970s Chicago who defied state law and built an underground service for women seeking safe, affordable abortions. The HBO Documentary Films project had its premiere at Sundance and began streaming on HBO/HBO Max in June, just after its qualifying theatrical run in Los Angeles.
Last Flight Home
Dir. Ondi Timoner
Two-time Sundance grand jury prize winner (for Dig! and We Live In Public) Timoner delivers an intimate look at her ailing 92-year-old father’s final days following his decision to end an eventful life surrounded by his family. Launched at this year’s Sundance, the MTV Documentary Films project also screened at the Telluride and BFI London festivals and had an October theatrical run in Los Angeles.
Moonage Daydream
Dir. Brett Morgen
This fluorescent journey through the music of rock icon David Bowie debuted as a Midnight screening at Cannes this year. US distributor Neon, which released the film on September 16, has pedigree for drawing both cinema crowds and navigating the awards run; while Universal has launched the film in international territories, with a worldwide total of $10.7m at time of writing. As well as featuring in documentary categories, Moonage Daydream should garner attention for its technical aspects, especially in sound. Morgen’s previous music documentary Cobain: Montage Of Heck was a seven-time Primetime Emmy nominee.
Navalny
Dir. Daniel Roher
Billed as a ‘documentary thriller’, CNN Films and HBO Max’s co-production portrays anti-corruption Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny after his survival of a 2020 assassination attempt by lethal nerve agent. Since winning both the US documentary audience award and the festival favorite award at Sundance, the film touched down at other festivals including CPH:DOX, had a qualifying Los Angeles theatrical run in March and a streaming debut on HBO Max in May.
Retrograde
Dir. Matthew Heineman
Six years after he tracked the drug trade in his Oscar-nominated Cartel Land, Heineman looks at the end of America’s war in Afghanistan in this National Geographic Documentary Films production, giving the perspectives of a US Special Forces unit, a young Afghan general and the civilians trying to flee the country. The project’s Telluride premiere is set to be followed by a US cinema release later this year.
Sr.
Dir. Chris Smith
The life, work and last days of maverick filmmaker Robert Downey Sr are the focus of this Telluride premiere, with famous son Robert Downey Jr producing and appearing in some of the footage. Smith — a 1999 Sundance documentary grand jury prize winner for American Movie — directed the Netflix acquisition, set for release on the service and in select US cinemas later this year.
The Territory
Dir. Alex Pritz
This National Geographic Documentary Films project, the feature directing debut of cinematographer Pritz, centres on the fight of an Indigenous community in the Brazilian Amazon against encroaching deforestation brought on by farmers and illegal settlers. Shot partly by the Indigenous people themselves, the film won Sundance’s audience award and special jury award for documentary craft after its festival premiere, and had a limited US theatrical release in August.
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