HEADLINES
 

The Nominees for the 17th Annual Cinema Eye Honors
Nominees announced via press release and reported on by Beatrice Verhoeven at The Hollywood Reporter: “Cinema Eye Honors, an organization that recognizes nonfiction and documentary films and series, on Thursday announced its nominees for the 17th annual awards show, which will take place on Jan. 12 in East Harlem, New York. Kokomo City, D. Smith’s debut feature, led the nominations with six nods, while 20 Days in Mariupol, 32 Sounds and The Eternal Memory each received five nominations. Netflix led all distributors with 11 nominations, followed by Magnolia Pictures with 10 and National Geographic with eight, while HBO and Hulu both scored seven.”

DOC NYC

DOC NYC Announces Award Winners

DOC NYC, America’s largest documentary festival, revealed the 2023 award winners for its juried U.S. Competition, International Competition, Metropolis, Kaleidoscope, Shorts, Short List: Features, and Short List: Shorts sections, as well as the #MyJustice Film Award. The festival’s Audience Award winner was Claire Jeffreys' Garland Jeffreys: The Kind of In Between.

The awards announcement comes on the eve of the closing night of the festival’s hybrid 14th edition. DOC NYC’s online screenings run through November 26, with some 90 features available to stream across the United States, including eight of the festival’s award-winners and more than 100 of the festival’s short films, including all six shorts award-winners. Many of the award winners also have in-person screenings in the final two days of the festival. For a full schedule of available films, see www.docnyc.net. Ticket and pass information is below.

For DOC NYC’s competitive sections, five juries selected films from the festival's U.S. Competition, International Competition, and Kaleidoscope sections, as well as its long-running Metropolis and Shorts lineups, to recognize for their outstanding achievements in form and content. The Short List: Features program—a selection of nonfiction films that the festival’s programming team considers to be among the year’s strongest contenders for Oscars and other awards—vied for awards in five categories: Directing, Producing, Cinematography, Editing, and Score, with a Directing prize also awarded in the Short List: Shorts section. The Short List awards were voted on by two juries of filmmaker peers. New for 2023, the DOC NYC U film student screenings were restyled as a competition. 

ON THE FESTIVAL CIRCUIT
 

At Least 18 Filmmakers Withdraw from IDFA 2023
Vadim Rizov reports at Filmmaker: “In the opening days of this year’s edition of IDFA, the documentary festival issued two statements on the bombing of Gaza. Following protests at the opening night ceremony where protesters carried banners including the slogan 'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,' the festival issued a first statement that condemned 'the hurtful slogan written on a banner by the protestors, for voicing their concerns, expressing the hurt they felt,' before going on to state that 'we believe that this slogan should not be used in any way and by anybody anymore.' The Palestine Film Institute condemned that response as one that 'unjustly criminalizes Palestinian voices and narratives.' The PFI’s statement also called for filmmaker to remove their work from the festival. IDFA’s second statement, issued in quick succession, began by specifying that 'we respect the pain and the huge loss on both the Palestinian and Israeli sides of the on-going conflict' and ended by calling for an immediate ceasefire.”

Documentary Filmmakers Discuss Viability of Industry Amidst Livelihood Crisis
Rafa Sales Ross reports for Variety: "The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam is putting the livelihood of documentary filmmakers at the heart of their industry program this year. On Monday, a panel of experts gathered to discuss the issues filmmakers face in making a living in the industry, from pay disparity, devaluation, lack of information and the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ushering in the conversation was specialist Rebecca Day from Film in Mind, an organization advocating for better mental health in the film industry. Day spoke about livelihood from the point of view of mental health and how rare it still is to have major events promoting such discussions. ‘Festivals prioritizing talks about mental health in filmmaking feels really new still and it’s essential,’ said the specialist.”

Chinese Film Director Barred From Attending Singapore World Premiere of Doc
Patrick Frater reports for Variety: "Chinese authorities have banned artist and film director Guo Zhenming from traveling to Singapore for the world premiere of his documentary film Tedious Days and Nights. The film is scheduled to play at the Singapore International Film Festival on Dec. 4 in the festival’s Standpoint strand. It was advertised as including a Q&A session with the director. Organizers of the SGIFF told Variety that they are still planning to press ahead with the screening, but they will do so in the absence of the filmmaker. ‘GIFF will stand by our selection and will continue to present the world premiere of Tedious Days and Nights,’ a spokesman told Variety.”

Hot Docs Names Hussain Currimbhoy as Artistic Director
Kelly Townsend reports for Realscreen: "The Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival has hired Toronto-born producer and festival programmer Hussain Currimbhoy as its new artistic director. The Toronto-based festival announced Currimbhoy’s appointment on Monday (November 13), noting that he will oversee programming for the annual festival — whose next edition will run from April 25 to May 5, 2024 — as well the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema and its national education program, Docs for Schools. He succeeds former artistic director Shane Smith, who stepped down from the role in June after eight years of leading the festival’s programming. Currimbhoy has worked as a festival programmer at several organizations, including the Sundance Film Festival, Sheffield DocFest and the Melbourne International Film Festival. He also launched the Gåsebäck Film Festival in Sweden this year."

FILM FEST KNOX 2023: A Fest is Born
Vadim Rizov reports at Filmmaker: "Founded by Keith McDaniel, the Knoxville Film Festival operated from 2004 until 2022. FILM FEST KNOX is its successor, co-founded by Visit Knoxville, filmmaker Paul Harrill and Darren Hughes, a friend and contributor who asked early in its development if I wanted to come check it out; because I am always up for a free trip out of town, I was happy to. Beyond the novelty of visiting a new city, I’ve never been around for year one of a festival. During FILM FEST KNOX’s smoothly executed first edition, 25 features or shorts programs screened on two nice screens over four days at the Regal Riviera, with 15 out-of-town guests attending (two press, the rest jury members and filmmakers). Local filmmakers were highlighted in the Made in Tennessee section as well as two Elev8tor programs of eight-minute proof-of-concept shorts. One prong of emphasis was Knoxville’s desire to attract film production, with Visit Knoxville representatives Kim Bumpas and Curt Willis proactively meeting visiting filmmakers to stress their availability and desire to help them connect with resources."

Slamdance 2024 to Open with Documentary One Bullet at The Yarrow
Announced via press release: “Slamdance, a year-round organization by filmmakers for filmmakers, announced today the opening night film for the 30th edition of their annual festival. Oscar winning filmmaker Carol Dysinger’s (Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl)) documentary, One Bullet, will screen on Friday, January 19, kicking off the festival. One Bullet tells the story of the mother of an Afghan teenager who was shot in front of his house, dying of his wounds two years later - and the scars left on their family by the experience -- through the lens of a friendship. A labor of love and understanding, One Bullet is a film eighteen years in the making and is an essential film about Afghanistan, America, and the reality of war. Slamdance also announced today that it will return to The Doubletree Park City - The Yarrow for the festival this year, which will run January 19-25, 2024. The location marks a return home for the organization, which had screenings at several locations in its inaugural year, including The Yarrow and the University of Utah, which will also be hosting screenings this year.”

MISCELLANEOUS
 

Every Star Wants a Documentary Now. But Is It Just PR?
Calum Marsh writes in The New York Times: “Documentarians have an inherently fraught relationship with their subjects, because what makes a compelling biographical film — a candid, penetrating portrait of a human being in all his complexity — nearly always runs counter to the subject’s best interests. But in the wake of The Last Dance (2020), the hit 10-part Netflix docuseries about Michael Jordan that Jordan’s company Jump 23 co-produced with Netflix, other athletes, musicians and movie stars have expressed a desire to see their own legacy depicted onscreen. It raises an obvious dilemma: If a celebrity has commissioned and even produced a documentary about themselves, can it ever hope to be balanced and objective?”