The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Thursday released its official entries for 2021 Oscars in the categories of Documentary Feature, Animated Feature and International Films. The takeaway: As expected, the eligible Documentary Feature lineup shatters the record for the most ever.
A total of 238 features are eligible for consideration in the Doc Feature category, breaking the previous record of 170 set in 2017. Last year, by contrast, 159 feature documentaries qualified. The Academy relaxed eligibility rules in light of Covid-19, so that any film that could make a claim of an intended theatrical release was deemed eligible. Earning awards from film festivals was an alternative way to qualify.
For the International Feature race, Lesotho, Sudan and Suriname are first-time entrants among the 93 eligible titles, the same total as last year. Earlier this year, the Academy’s Board of Governors boosted the number of films eligible for the shortlist from 10 to 15. Under the new rules,...
A total of 238 features are eligible for consideration in the Doc Feature category, breaking the previous record of 170 set in 2017. Last year, by contrast, 159 feature documentaries qualified. The Academy relaxed eligibility rules in light of Covid-19, so that any film that could make a claim of an intended theatrical release was deemed eligible. Earning awards from film festivals was an alternative way to qualify.
For the International Feature race, Lesotho, Sudan and Suriname are first-time entrants among the 93 eligible titles, the same total as last year. Earlier this year, the Academy’s Board of Governors boosted the number of films eligible for the shortlist from 10 to 15. Under the new rules,...
- 1/28/2021
- by Patrick Hipes and Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
The Oscars Best Documentary Feature race, which set a new record for entries in December when it passed the previous record of 170, has now left all previous years in the dust with 240 eligible films.
An additional 25 documentary features were placed in the members-only online screening room devoted to the category on Saturday, in what the Academy told voters would be “the final batch” of this year’s entries. It was the last of seven groups of documentaries that qualified and were placed into the screening room: 25 in July, 12 in August, 16 in September, 33 in October, 36 in November, a huge group of 93 in December and now 25 in January.
Academy rules put in place because of the Covid-19 pandemic made it easier than usual for documentaries to qualify for the Oscars this year, which opened the door for a field that obliterated the previous record, which was set in 2017. Films could qualify simply...
An additional 25 documentary features were placed in the members-only online screening room devoted to the category on Saturday, in what the Academy told voters would be “the final batch” of this year’s entries. It was the last of seven groups of documentaries that qualified and were placed into the screening room: 25 in July, 12 in August, 16 in September, 33 in October, 36 in November, a huge group of 93 in December and now 25 in January.
Academy rules put in place because of the Covid-19 pandemic made it easier than usual for documentaries to qualify for the Oscars this year, which opened the door for a field that obliterated the previous record, which was set in 2017. Films could qualify simply...
- 1/17/2021
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
The Academy has added 93 more films to the members-only screening room devoted to entries in the Best Documentary Feature category, bringing the total number of eligible contenders to a record-shattering 215.
The previous record for entries was 170 in 2017. And this year’s crop of nonfiction films is expected to pass that number by an even bigger margin — at least 50 — once a final, smaller group of films is added to the screening room in January.
New eligibility rules that were passed in the wake of the Covid-19 theater closings made it easier for documentaries to qualify this year by allowing them to do so by playing at film festivals, even virtual ones, and by easing requirements for theatrical runs. In an email to members detailing the new additions, the Academy said, “The Documentary Branch Executive Committee felt it was important to be inclusive and supportive of documentary filmmakers in this unprecedented and challenging year.
The previous record for entries was 170 in 2017. And this year’s crop of nonfiction films is expected to pass that number by an even bigger margin — at least 50 — once a final, smaller group of films is added to the screening room in January.
New eligibility rules that were passed in the wake of the Covid-19 theater closings made it easier for documentaries to qualify this year by allowing them to do so by playing at film festivals, even virtual ones, and by easing requirements for theatrical runs. In an email to members detailing the new additions, the Academy said, “The Documentary Branch Executive Committee felt it was important to be inclusive and supportive of documentary filmmakers in this unprecedented and challenging year.
- 12/22/2020
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
“Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn” is collecting nominations on the pathway to Oscar season. The film just earned two bids from Cinema Eye Honors, an awards group that honors nonfiction films and series as voted on by programmers and experts. The HBO doc, which chronicles the life of Roy Cohn, former attorney to Donald Trump, earned bids in the categories of Outstanding Broadcast Film and Outstanding Editing in a Broadcast Film or Series. In both cases it was nominated in a field of five, beating out tough competition, which could make it one of the films to watch in the upcoming Best Documentary Feature race at the Oscars.
Seehbo’s Roy Cohn documentary ‘Bully. Coward. Victim.’ is a uniquely personal look at Trump’s former lawyer
Directed by Ivy Meeropol, “Bully. Coward. Victim.” is a sprawling look at Cohn’s impact in the legal world, delving into...
Seehbo’s Roy Cohn documentary ‘Bully. Coward. Victim.’ is a uniquely personal look at Trump’s former lawyer
Directed by Ivy Meeropol, “Bully. Coward. Victim.” is a sprawling look at Cohn’s impact in the legal world, delving into...
- 11/29/2020
- by Kevin Jacobsen
- Gold Derby
The Academy dropped another 33 feature films into the online screening room for members of its Documentary Branch on Oct. 30, giving the Oscars doc race its biggest influx of new films to date. The branch now has 86 films to consider, with two or three more batches of films (and potentially more than 50 additional contenders) likely to be added to the field by early January.
Coming the same week that the Critics Choice Documentary Awards announced its nominees and the International Documentary Association’s Ida Documentary Awards revealed the 30-film shortlist from which it will make its final choices, the Academy move kicked the Oscar doc race into another gear in a year that promises to be highly competitive.
Among the docs that were made available to voters this week were Bryce Dallas Howard’s film about fatherhood, “Dads,” which means she’ll be competing against her father, Ron Howard, who is...
Coming the same week that the Critics Choice Documentary Awards announced its nominees and the International Documentary Association’s Ida Documentary Awards revealed the 30-film shortlist from which it will make its final choices, the Academy move kicked the Oscar doc race into another gear in a year that promises to be highly competitive.
Among the docs that were made available to voters this week were Bryce Dallas Howard’s film about fatherhood, “Dads,” which means she’ll be competing against her father, Ron Howard, who is...
- 11/2/2020
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
“Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn” is one of multiple projects tackling the life of Roy Cohn, but few are as personal as director Ivy Meeropol‘s HBO documentary. Meeropol is the granddaughter of Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg, who were convicted of espionage and put to death on Cohn’s recommendation. “Bully. Coward. Victim.” features Meeropol talking to her father, Michael Meeropol, about his experience advocating for his parents.
See ‘Time’: Garrett Bradley’s Sundance award-winning documentary about love and incarceration could make Oscar history
The documentary explores the many twists and turns of Cohn’s life, not only encompassing his work in the Rosenberg trials but his association with various influential figures from the ’50s through the ’80s like Joseph McCarthy, President Ronald Reagan, Rupert Murdoch and future President Donald Trump. Interspersed throughout the film we check in on Ivy’s conversations with her father...
See ‘Time’: Garrett Bradley’s Sundance award-winning documentary about love and incarceration could make Oscar history
The documentary explores the many twists and turns of Cohn’s life, not only encompassing his work in the Rosenberg trials but his association with various influential figures from the ’50s through the ’80s like Joseph McCarthy, President Ronald Reagan, Rupert Murdoch and future President Donald Trump. Interspersed throughout the film we check in on Ivy’s conversations with her father...
- 10/30/2020
- by Kevin Jacobsen
- Gold Derby
It makes sense that this year’s AFI Fest closed on Thursday night with the premiere of director Errol Morris’ wild and entertaining documentary “My Psychedelic Love Story.” In a year in which reality has smacked all of us in the face, nonfiction filmmaking is in the spotlight more than ever, from a string of docs that deal with issues at stake in the upcoming election to more freewheeling works like Morris’ film, a Wtf concoction from a director who only gets this playful once in a while.
It’s undeniable that the Oscars race for Best Picture is off to a slow start, with fewer films than usual playing the scaled-down fall film festivals and studios reluctant to commit to theatrical openings as the pandemic stretches on. But the race for Best Documentary Feature promises to be a robust one. More than 50 films are now available in the Academy...
It’s undeniable that the Oscars race for Best Picture is off to a slow start, with fewer films than usual playing the scaled-down fall film festivals and studios reluctant to commit to theatrical openings as the pandemic stretches on. But the race for Best Documentary Feature promises to be a robust one. More than 50 films are now available in the Academy...
- 10/23/2020
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
The amoral legacy of closeted gay political operator Roy Cohn has come back to life in two films of the moment: Matt Tyrnauer’s “Where’s My Roy Cohn?” and now this more personal documentary directed by Ivy Meeropol, granddaughter of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were prosecuted by Cohn and executed for treason in 1953.
Meeropol previously covered the story of her grandparents in her 2004 documentary “Heir to an Execution,” and she sketches out the basics of the case against them at the beginning of her film on Cohn, starting off with footage of herself as a girl talking to her father about what happened to Julius and Ethel. She then cuts to footage of Cohn, who always signals, “I am evil” for the camera, as if he were very conscious of the part he was trying to play.
“The Story of Roy Cohn” tries to establish a balance between Cohn and the Rosenberg family,...
Meeropol previously covered the story of her grandparents in her 2004 documentary “Heir to an Execution,” and she sketches out the basics of the case against them at the beginning of her film on Cohn, starting off with footage of herself as a girl talking to her father about what happened to Julius and Ethel. She then cuts to footage of Cohn, who always signals, “I am evil” for the camera, as if he were very conscious of the part he was trying to play.
“The Story of Roy Cohn” tries to establish a balance between Cohn and the Rosenberg family,...
- 6/19/2020
- by Dan Callahan
- The Wrap
Roy Cohn had always been a haunting presence in filmmaker Ivy Meeropol’s life, but the full extent of his existence was only apparent after she watched Meryl Streep play her grandmother, Ethel Rosenberg, in HBO’s 2003 “Angels in America.” “I think seeing the film made me finally connect emotionally to my human story, and this was a story I needed to tell,” Meeropol says. “I could do something no one else could because of my family history.”
The result is the documentary “Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn,” which debuts June 19 on HBO.
Cohn was one of the most ruthless lawyers in American history — working with Sen. Joe McCarthy during the anti-Communist Army-McCarthy hearings of the 1950s. Cohn was also responsible, with McCarthy, for creating the Lavender scare of the ’50s, leading the government to repress and purge itself of homosexual people. And he pushed hard for...
The result is the documentary “Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn,” which debuts June 19 on HBO.
Cohn was one of the most ruthless lawyers in American history — working with Sen. Joe McCarthy during the anti-Communist Army-McCarthy hearings of the 1950s. Cohn was also responsible, with McCarthy, for creating the Lavender scare of the ’50s, leading the government to repress and purge itself of homosexual people. And he pushed hard for...
- 6/12/2020
- by Jazz Tangcay
- Variety Film + TV
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