DIVERSITY RULES IN 2016 IDA NOMINATIONS

No, nothing to do with anyone named 'Ida,' at least to my awareness, these are the International Documentary Association nominations for doc filmmaking in 2016, their 32nd annual slate of awards. A whole bunch of acclaimed titles here, which include several TV categories not included in this post. Some I've seen and enjoyed already, and others to which I'm highly looking forward. Among the nominees in top categories are some award winners already announced. Pleasingly, three of the seven directors with films up for the Best Feature award are POC, and three are women. Winners will be announced on the 9th of December. You can see all the film nominees below:

Best Feature
13th (Spencer Averick, Howard Barish and Ava DuVernay)
Cameraperson (Kirsten Johnson and Marilyn Ness)
Fire at Sea (Roberto Ciccutto, Paolo del Brocco, Camille Laemle, Serge Lalou, Donatella Palermo, Olivier Pere, Gianfranco Rosi and Martine Saada)
I Am Not Your Negro (Remi Grellety and Raoul Peck)
O. J.: Made in America (Ezra Edelman, Deirdre Fenton, Libby Geist, Nina Krstic, Erin Leyden, Tamara Rosenberg, Connor Schell and Caroline Waterlow)
Weiner (Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg)

Best Writing
James Baldwin and Raoul Peck (I Am Not Your Negro)

Best Cinematography
Gianfranco Rosi (Fire at Sea)

Best Editing
Nels Bangerter (Cameraperson)

Best Music
Jacaszek (The Bad Kids)

Pare Lorentz Award
Starless Dreams (Mehrdad Oskouei)

Best Short
The Above (Kirsten Johnson and Marilyn Ness)
Clinica de Migrantes: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (Jenny Lim and Maxim Pozdorvkin)
Extremis (Dan Krauss)
Pickle (Amy Nicholson)
Red Lake (Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato and Billy Luther)
The White Helmets (Joanna Natasegara and Orlando von Einsiedel)

1ST EVER CRITICS' CHOICE DOCUMENTARY AWARDS: NOMINATIONS ANNOUNCED

Well, well, well! Who'd have expected this? The 2016-17 awards season kicks off extra early this year, as the Broadcast Film Critics Association announces its nominees for its first ever Critics' Choice Documentary Awards. Previously, the BFCA had simply handed out one award for Best Documentary at their annual movie awards ceremony; like any organization desperate to remain relevant, several significant changes have been made to the Critics' Choice awards in recent years, mainly of questionable character, but this new development is a promising one. That's one fewer award to chuck out during the commercial breaks on their hopeless televized awards ceremony, and several more awards for documentary filmmaking, ever underappreciated by audiences. As a further sign of the blurring of the lines between film and TV, these awards feature projects from both media. Award winners will be declared at a ceremony on the 3rd of November. Check it all out below:

Best Documentary Feature

13th

Cameraperson

Fire at Sea

Gleason

Life, Animated

O.J.: Made in America

Tickled

Tower

Weiner

The Witness

Best Direction of a Documentary Feature

Ezra Edelman (O.J.: Made in America)

Ron Howard (The Beatles: Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years)

Kirsten Johnson (Cameraperson)

Keith Maitland (Tower)

Clay Tweel (Gleason)

Roger Ross Williams (Life, Animated)

Best Song in a Documentary Feature

Tori Amos - 'Flicker' (Audrie & Daisy)

Common, Karriem Riggins and Robert Glasper - 'Letters to the Free' (13th)

Sharon Jones - 'I'm Still Here' (Miss Sharon Jones!)

Mike McCready - 'Hoping and Healing' (Gleason)

J. Ralph and Sting - 'The Empty Chair' (Jim: The James Foley Story)

Sia - 'Angel by the Wings' (The Eagle Huntress)

Best First Documentary Feature

Otto Bell (The Eagle Huntress)

David Farrier and Dylan Reeve (Tickled)

Adam Irving (Off the Rails)

Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg (Weiner)

James D. Solomon (The Witness)

Wang Nan Fu (Hooligan Sparrow)

Best Music Documentary

The Beatles: Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years

Gimme Danger

Miss Sharon Jones!

The Music of Strangers

Presenting Princess Shaw

We Are X

Best Political Documentary

13th

Audrie & Daisy

Newtown

O.J.: Made in America

Weiner

Zero Days

Best Sports Documentary

Dark Horse

The Eagle Huntress

Gleason

Fantastic Lies

Jackie Robinson

Keepers of the Game

O.J.: Made in America

Most Innovative Documentary

Cameraperson

Kate Plays Christine

Life, Animated

Nuts

Tower

Under the Sun

Best Documentary Feature: TV / Streaming

13th

Amanda Knox

Audrie & Daisy

Before the Flood

Fantastic Lies

Holy Hell

Into the Inferno

Jim: The James Foley Story

Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures

Rats

Best Ongoing Documentary Series

30 for 30

Frontline

Last Chance U

Morgan Spurlock Inside Man

POV

This Is Life with Lisa Ling

Best Limited Documentary Series

The Circus: Inside the Greatest Political Show on Earth

The Eighties

The Hunt

Jackie Robinson

O.J.: Made in America

Soundbreaking: Stories from the Cutting Edge of Recorded Music

Best Director: TV / Streaming

Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato (Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures)

Rod Blackhurst and Brian McGinn (Amanda Knox)

Ava DuVernay (13th)

Werner Herzog (Into the Inferno)

Morgan Spurlock (Rats)

Fisher Stevens (Before the Flood)

Best First Feature: TV / Streaming

Everything Is Copy (Jacob Bernstein and Nick Hooker)

Holy Hell (Will Allen)

Mavis! (Jessica Edwards)

My Beautiful Broken Brain (Sophie Robinson and Lotje Sodderland)

Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four (Deborah Esquenazi)

Team Foxcatcher (Jon Greenhalgh)

REVIEW - FIRE AT SEA (GIANFRANCO ROSI)

My country has turned its back on these people. An island nation of whites, condemning countless brown and black faces to dehydrate and drown on waters mere miles from our own, mere miles that yet we've found all too easy to ignore, an ease that seems set to only increase. Gianfranco Rosi's observational style, its apparent passivity contrasted by its intensity of focus and by Rosi's choices of focus points, thoughtful and thought-provoking, provides an ideal outlook to Fire at Sea's more disquieting sections. No flourishes, no embellishments, no direction except that of the action that it documents - a powerful film in that it captures a powerful reality. It is thus that Rosi's focus points must then come under more sceptical scrutiny. The lives of Lampedusa's inhabitants remain curiously unchanged, and inferences are drawn between the lack of concern Rosi identifies in his subjects and that of the wider European community, growing all too accustomed to tragedy no longer on its doorstep but with both feet already through it. But these inferences are altogether too subtle in Fire at Sea, which often gets caught up in gentle character comedy and a thoroughly un-cinematic mundanity in that observational style. It's a fine contrast to the more harrowing material, but it's unnecessarily dwelt upon in this regard, distracting from the crux of this film's own concerns, which leaves much of its first two thirds worthy but bland. This powerful reality does receive the treatment warranted by its power, but too little, too late. As a statement on this cleft continent's current situation, it's as thought-provoking as any other.

ROSI BAGS THE BEAR AT BERLINALE

Making another claim in favour of diversity in the major festivals, Meryl Streep's jury chose a wide variety of films and filmmakers in their 2016 Berlinale awards. Gianfranco Rosi's Fire at Sea, a documentary about the refugee crisis in Europe, won the Golden Bear for Best Film - surely it can't be just a coincidence that docs keep claiming top festival prizes when entered into these competitions! And quite the achievement for Rosi on his first Golden Bear contender, less than three years after winning at Venice less than three years ago for his last film and first Golden Lion contender, Sacro GRA. Filipino auteur Lav Diaz also brought home a major award, flying the flag for marathon runtimes; the Best Director prize went to Mia Hansen-Love for Things to Come - both welcome examples of inclusion in the international film community. Good choices, Streep and co.! Check out all their choices below:

Golden Bear for Best Film

Fire at Sea (Gianfranco Rosi)

Silver Bear - Grand Jury Prize

Death in Sarajevo (Danis Tanovic)

Silver Bear - Alfred Bauer Prize

A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery (Lav Diaz)

Silver Bear for Best Director

Mia Hansen-Love (Things to Come)

Silver Bear for Best Actor

Majd Mastoura (Hedi)

Silver Bear for Best Actress

Trine Dyrholm (The Commune)

Silver Bear for Best Script

Tomasz Wasilewski (United States of Love)

Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution

Lee Ping Bin (Crosscurrent)

Best First Feature

Hedi (Mohamed Ben Attia)

Golden Bear for Best Short Film

Batrachian's Ballad (Leonor Teles)

Berlin Short Film Nominee for the European Film Awards

A Man Returned (Mahdi Fleifel)

Audi Short Film Award

Anchorage Prohibited (Chiang Wei Liang)