I don’t normally post about awards or festivals, (mainly because I’m never at any of them) but I thought it was worth mentioning that The Cinema Eye awards, brainchild of About a Son director AJ Schnack, celebrated its first year by honouring some great docs. I’m glad to see Billy the Kid and King of Kong mentioned, and I’m extremely excited to see Manda Bala in the near future. Anyone who was left unsatisfied by the Academy Awards approach to honouring non-fiction should be pretty happy with these results. Here’s the list of winners as posted on Schancks blog:
Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking
MANDA BALA (SEND A BULLET)
Directed by Jason Kohn
Produced by Joey Frank, Jared Goldman and Jason Kohn
Outstanding Achievement in Direction
Alex Gibney
TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE
Outstanding Achievement in Production
Seth Kanegis, Tomas Radoor & Mikael Rieks
GHOSTS OF CITE SOLEIL
Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography
Heloisa Passos
MANDA BALA (SEND A BULLET)
Outstanding Achievement in Editing
Doug Abel, Jenny Golden & Andy Grieve
MANDA BALA (SEND A BULLET)
Outstanding Achievement in Graphic Design and Animation
The Team from Curious Pictures
CHICAGO 10
Outstanding International Feature
THE MONASTERY – MR. VIG & THE NUN
Directed by Pernille Rose Gronkjær
Produced by Sigrid Dyekjær
Outstanding Debut Feature
Jennifer Venditti
BILLY THE KID
Audience Choice Prize
THE KING OF KONG: A FISTFUL OF QUARTERS
Directed by Seth Gordo
That’s a nice group of films. I missed out on Manda Bala when it was released here last fall, but I am pretty excited to watch it on DVD. I’ve heard nothing but great things.
No less than 2 danish films won. They both have collected awards all over the world (Ghosts even won the american DGA award, and I still have not seen them because I am a horrible asshole (and the subject matter isn’t very interesting to me).