The falling leaves are a sure sign it’s now the beginning of awards season, with Oscar short lists starting to leak out, IDA Awards prepping their program and the Emmy’s already handing out golden statues. Also, on the festival circuit this month we have a whole host of big lineup announcements coming from a hefty set of acronym loving non-fiction fests the world over, from CPH:DOX and DOC NYC, to IDFA and RIDM. Best of Fests Docs is a monthly snapshot of the films and filmmakers that are the make-up of the docu film festival and awards circuit. Check out the full rundown below:
CPH:DOX – Denmark – November 6th-16th
The festival, also known as Copenhagen International Documentary Festival , has announced its 2014 lineup, which was guest curated this year by CITIZENFOUR director Laura Poitras. Over 200 films (with the likes of Robert Greene’s Actress, Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Look of Silence, Sergei Loznitsa’s Maidan, Margaret Brown’s The Great Invisible) are scheduled to screen amongst the many international venues the festival now travels to, including a pair of world premieres with Omer Fast’s Everything That Rises Must Converge and Andreas M. Dalsgaard’s Life is Sacred.
DOC NYC – United States – November 13th-20th
Basil Tsiokos, Thom Powers and the rest of the DOC NYC programming team have unveiled their 2014 lineup which naturally includes cross over itesm from TIFF, but also includes the much anticipated world premieres to Amy Berg’s Hollywood sex abuse exposé, An Open Secret, Dan Rybicky and Aaron Wickenden’s many buried secrets of an unknown artist in Almost There (trailer below) and more Banksy in the New York premiere of Banksy Does New York.
IDA Awards
Robert Redford is to be honored with the Career Achievement Award for his dedication and support of non-fiction filmmaking through his founding of the Sundance Institute, while Cambodian filmmaker Rithy Panh will receive the Preservation and Scholarship Award for his contributions to preserving significant motion picture archives and educating the public and industry about the role nonfiction filmmaking plays in society with monumental films like The Missing Picture and S21: The Khmer Rouge Death Machine.
IDFA – The Netherlands – November 19th-30th
With another impressively massive lineup of over 300 documentaries, the 27th edition of International Documentary Festival of Amsterdam includes a slate of over 80 world premieres, including Ryan Mullins’s Chameleon, Seung-Jun Yi’s Wind on the Moon (pic at the top) and Heddy Honigmann’s Around the World in 50 Concerts. In addition to their screening titles, the docu-mecca also hosts the IDFA Forum, where 50 filmmakers will pitch their projects in hopes of garnering co-production or co-financing partners. Among the more noteworthy items we find Armadillo‘s Janus Metz placing himself in Between Two Worlds — the decade long project is “a mirror image of a Thai village and a Danish fishing community tied together by marriage migration.” Narco Cultura‘s Shaul Schwarz helmer explores reunification and uncovers the dark past of one family in Aida’s Secrets and A Place at the Table‘s Kristi Jacobson moves from what we have on our plates to what solitary confinement entails in the American justice system Out of Mind.
Doclisboa – Portugal – October 14th-18th
Wang Bing’s Father and Sons , Soon-Mi Yoo’s Songs From the North (trailer below) and Eric Baudelaire’s Letter to Max were all winners at the 12th edition of DocLisboa (here is the complete listing of featured docu items). Additionally, the three day professionally tutored workshop and following two day pitch program ran parallel to the DocLisboa Film Festival, seeing 21 projects attempt to secure financing or co-production partners.
Lumière Grand Lyon Film Festival – France – October 13th-19th
The festival which celebrates films of the past with glorious restorations, showed off the international premiere to Chuck Workman’s Magician: the Astonishing Life and Works of Orson Welles, which premiered earlier this year at the Telluride Film Festival. It was picked up just in time for the notorious auteur’s Centenary next year.
RIDM – Canada – November 12th-23rd
The Montreal International Documentary Festival also known to Québécois natives as the RIDM (Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montréal), is a the substantial doc fest has announced its lineup of 141 films, including 21 world premieres. Kim Nguyen who made waves with fictional War Witch (Rebelle) opens the fest with Le Nez.
News and Documentary Emmy Awards
Of the many non-fiction films that made it to the small screen for Emmy consideration this year, Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering’s The Invisible War won a pair of awards – Outstanding Investigative Journalism – Long Form and Best Documentary. Lucy Walker‘s The Crash Reel took home one for Outstanding Informational Program – Long Form. Mike Lerner and Maxim Pozdorovkin’s Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer won Outstanding Music and Sound, and finally, Detropia won Outstanding Editing: Documentary and Long Form.
Academy Awards
On October 20th, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the field of 8 Documentary Short Subject contenders which will vie for one of the 3-5 nominations given for the 87th Academy Awards. They are:
“Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1,” Perry Films
“Joanna,” Wajda Studio
“Kehinde Wiley: An Economy of Grace,” Show of Force
“The Lion’s Mouth Opens,” Tree Tree Tree
“One Child,” New York University
“Our Curse,” Warsaw Film School
“The Reaper (La Parka),” Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica
“White Earth,” Weary Traveler
