Oscar Prediction 2014
Tomorrow night is Oscar night. On filmkommentaren.dk all five contenders in the feature length catagory have been reviewed, the latest watched in Zagreb the other day: ”Twenty Feet from Stardom”, an entertaining film, about which I wrote ”but the film is not so well put together, it feels a bit messy in structure, and too long, maybe because, with all respect, the women are not all sooo interesting, but they get equal film time…”
Nevertheless it is this film that NYTimes Melena Ryzik thinks will get the Oscar. This is her interesting argumentation: If only documentarians and select members who saw the nominated films in theaters voted on this prize, as was the case until last year, “The Act of Killing,” a chilling and inventive look at death squads in Indonesia, would walk off with the top prize. But now Academy members are sent DVDs and invited to vote for documentaries. That means “20 Feet From Stardom” should pick up the statuette: It’s a crowd-pleaser that also happens to be a well-told tale about a subject close to many performers’ hearts — the careers of backup singers, a.k.a. the talented lot who don’t often get the recognition they deserve. It doesn’t hurt that the film’s campaign was handled by the Weinstein Company, for which no opening or musical event was too small to trot out its very willing stars…
Interesting, let’s see if she is right. For me, who fall into the category of “documentarians”, there is no doubt that the film to have the Documentary Oscar is “The Act of Killing”. The company behind the film is described in the DFI (Danish Film Institute) website, read the whole article, here is a quote:
It seems fitting that the Copenhagen production company Final Cut for Real is located on Forbindelsesvej – literally, “Connection Street.” Talking with company co-founder Signe Byrge Sørensen, who produced Joshua Oppenheimer’s Oscar-nominated “The Act of Killing”, makes it clear that Final Cut for Real was put in this world to make connections – between people, filmmakers, cultures and world events….
