Close to 100 Films in Contention for the 2010 Cinema Eye Honors

Having never asked any filmmaker the question of how the Cinema Eye Honors are perceived within the documentary filmmaker community, I’d be willing to bet that its quickly become a welcomed, annual celebration of the form. I’m glad that the organization, (now in year three I believe?) has a set in stone manner in which to evaluate the best of the best in doc films, something in which the Oscars have proved to be inadequate in acknowledging.

The cut-off point appears to be before this year’s TIFF, which means a doc like Chris Smith’s Collapse, which only receives its theatrical release in November, won’t make the cut until next year, but we have a total of 98 nonfiction pics to consider (see list below) for a multitude of categories.

I’ve copied and pasted the list from AJ Schnack’s Doc Blog (click here to read the very straight-forward eligibility rules) and from this list, I can say that I’m familiar with about 90 percent of the titles, that despite not going to SilverDocs or Hot Docs, I’ve personally watched one in five films on the list and one in eight films that I’ve yet to see are actually sitting on my desk as screeners. Among the 98, I’m most curious about the prospects for films which I’m guilty of having not yet seen (and if there are any publicists out there reading this, would love to receive a screener for). High up on my must see list are: Alexander Olch’s The Windmill Movie, Helena Trestikova’s Rene and Lucy Bailey and Andrew Thompson’s Mugabe and The White African (see pic above). Nominations for the various categories will be announced November 5th.