Chris Blum: Big Time

What a treat I got last Friday during the music film festival in Copenhagen: To be able to watch this old Tom Waits-film on the big screen again. It’s from a time in his career when he had almost redefined himself as an artist (with invaluable help from his wife Kathleen Brennan on the three albums “Swordfishtrombones”, “Rain Dogs” and “Frank’s Wild Years”), and the film consists of concert performances loosely glued together with fictionalized intermezzos with some off-beat Waits-personas.

He has always been inspired by American musical culture (blues, Tin Pan Alley-songwriting, jazz’n’poetry of the Beat-generation to name a few) and in this period he throws in a lot of other good stuff too (different European music styles for example). He manages to take it all in, give it a twist and a growl and then you have that unmistakable musician he had become at that time. His musicians matches him perfectly (including the innovative guitarist Marc Ribot), and my biggest objection to the film is that it offers them too little screen time.

But the film also documents that Waits is just one hell of a performer. Not a good actor in films, no – never thought so – but having seen him live on three occasions I can vouch for the impression that this film brings: he is a quite unique composer, lyricist, storyteller, comedian AND entertainer.

Though it may not be the best introduction to his music for Waits-novices (it IS a rather wild ride); as a concert or music film it is just right and despite being from around the time of the early days of MTV it actually feels rather timeless. It is both a document of a certain time in an artist’s career and a semi-avant-garde experience in its own right.

The film has never been released on dvd and the “literature” is a bit vague on the reasons. It can, however, be found on the internet, but you didn’t hear it from me since I’m pretty sure that neither the director nor the Waits-couple has agreed to it.

USA, 1988, 87 mins

Alexandru Solomon and Kino Kombat

I just discovered that it is 20 years ago that I met Alexandru Solomon in Bucharest. My wife worked at DR (Danish Public Broadcaster) and I was at the National Film Board of Denmark. We bought two of his visual experiments/short films for broadcast and non-theatrical distribution. Titles: ”Shriek into the Ear-Drum” (1993) and ”2 x 5” (1993), pretty wild stuff… would never pass through today’s overall filmic normalization, well maybe at art museums and galleries.

Times have changed, Solomon is now an internationally renowned and committed documentarian, who has made several films on politics in his country. His films are made through hifilm, the company of his wife Ada, who produces award-winning fiction films on an international level.

Back to why I am writing this: Kino Kombat is online and for free until March 16, 5 films are available from the current programme of the 7th edition of One World Romania International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival.

You can read more about the films on DocAlliance website, see below, where there also is an interview with Alexandru Solomon, who is the director of the festival. He gives the following answer to ”Why Kino Kombat?”:

“Each year we express the focus of the festival’s current edition through a slogan. In Romania, in the past year we have seen a fresh civic commitment expressing itself in the streets, through protests and gatherings, but also through the arts. We are premiering two Romanian films that portray these demonstrations and we are exhibiting the drawings of Dan Perjovschi, one of the most important artists of our time, who reflected and nourished these protests. “Kino Kombat” stands as recognition of our double pledge – to human rights and to documentary cinema, as one of the best tools to promote human rights in a creative way. The Romanian version of this slogan is “Cine-luptă”, meaning cine(matic)-fight, and our central picture for the 7th edition is the camera-weapon. A weapon that is honest, intelligent and non-violent. The documentaries we select and promote are usually committed to a certain cause but they are not politically correct, they are provocative and have multiple layers, because they are also cinematic.” BRAVO!

http://www.alexandrusolomon.ro/

http://www.hifilm.ro/

http://dafilms.com/event/160-kino-kombat-online/

Eduardo Coutinho

The Brazilian documentarian, who died tragically on the 2nd of February, 80 years old, is the obvious subject for an homage at the upcoming Cinéma du Réel in Paris (March 20-30), where ”Cabra Marcado Para Morrer” (119 mins.), said to be one of his most important works, will be shown. The film that won the Grand Prix at the festival in 1985 is described like this in a newsletter from the festival:

« Au Brésil, le tournage d’un film sur l’assassinat d’un leader paysan est interrompu par le coup d’Etat de 1964. Vingt ans après, le réalisateur retrouve Elisabeth Testera, la femme de ce leader, et ses enfants. Il tente de l’aider a réassumer son passé […]. Au moment où le Brésil change, ce film nous fait mieux comprendre une certaine réalité du pays pendant ces vingt dernières années. » (Cinéma du réel, 1985). The short film “Sobreviventes de Galileia” (2013, 27 mins.) is also shown on this occasion –  and on March 13 in the Cinema La Clef “Edificio Master” (2002, 110 mins.) will be on the screen:

“Ce film suit, au quotidien, les habitants de l’immeuble « Edificio Master » à Copacabana , Rio de Janeiro. 12 étages de 23 appartements chacun. En tout, 276 logements où vivent près de 500 personnes dans la décadence, l’espoir et la solitude. Prostituées, trafiquants, domestiques, retraités, tous racontent leur histoire simplement et dignement.”

I have – without success – tried to find a thorough English language article on the work of Coutinho. However, below a link to a young filmmaker’s appreciation of the director, plus (in Portuguese) statements from Brazilian film people in connection with his death.

http://www.rogerebert.com/far-flung-correspondents/broken-screens-eduardo-coutinho-19332014

http://www.estadao.com.br/noticias/arteelazer,colegas-lamentam-a-morte-de-eduardo-coutinho,1125938,0.htm

Katrine Borre: Mette’s Voice

“Mette’s Voice” is reviewed below by Allan Berg, who praises the film. The film is available in an English subtitled version and could definitely be interesting for festival selectors. Here is the synopsis: Denmark is supposed to be a country of happy people. It is also ranking no. 2 in the world as consumer of psychopharmaca, and one out of ten Danes takes Prozac on a regular basis.

Mette is 43 years and a trained nurse. She has been a psychiatric patient for the past 15 years. She has been hearing voices since she was 8.Diagnosis: Paranoid Schizophrenia. Treatment: Vast amounts of medicine, 150 electro-shock treatments and disablility living allowance.

To psychiatrists, Mette represents one of the most complex patient groups. She is stigmatized and surrounded by prejudice. This film tracks Mette’s life and her ups and downs during four years. She is finally getting along and achieves some of her greatest goals.

A warm and thought provoking film about mastering your own life. About growing yourself and encountering life’s trauma – despite diagnoses. About never bereaving other people of their hopes.

The film takes Mette’s perspective. It has become a strong manifest in very

emotional discussion in Denmark on traditional and one-sided focus on medical treatment of mental diseases.

Director  & Producer: Katrine Borre – born in Aarhus 26 July 1960.

Katrine Borre has worked as an independent freelance documentary director in collaboration with a number of production companies since 1985. DR-TV, The National Danish Film Institute and Swedish TV are some of the distributors to buy Katrine’s productions.

April 2012 Katrine started her own production company, Cowgirls For Real, and Mette’s Voice is the first production to appear from this company.

Most often, Katrine Borre works on her own with her camera. She prefers to integrate with prejudiced people or environments. She strives to present counter-images or to look at important issues from new angles. Her stories will always start with individual human beings. Themes are often love, dreams and longings. Her genre is ‘poetic realism’.

In her own life, Katrine is a devoted jazz singer.

www.filmkontoret.dk/FILMKONTOR-Cowgirls-for-real.html

Katrine Borre: Mettes stemme

Det begynder naturligvis med Mettes stemme, som fortæller om stemmerne, hun konstant har hørt siden, hun var barn. Bebrejdende, truende, foruroligende… Men så kommer en stemme, som jeg kender fra en tidligere film, Katrine Borres stemme. Det er en stemme, som gør mig tryg. Den har to funktioner, den bærer fortællingen ud af filmen hen til mig, og den er med i filmen, deltager i samværene fra sin position ved kameraet. Jeg ser og hører det, instruktøren ser og hører, er lige ved siden af. Og instruktøren gør tydeligt den plagede Mette Askov tryg, for aldeles og ganske naturligt indforstået accepterer instruktøren og filmen det faktum som et faktum, at Mette hører stemmer, forfølges af dem. Den psykiske lidelse, som lægerne siger det er, har navnet paranoid skizofreni og skal og bliver da også behandlet med medicin. Og jeg forstår med filmen og må acceptere disse nøje beskrevne stemmer. Jeg gør det uden videre, for de er virkelige, i filmen er de lige så virkelige som de landskaber, dyr, personer, rum og ting i rum, som filmen også omhyggeligt gør rede for. Katrine Borre har altså holdt fast i sin metode fra den tidligere film, hun fortæller sin film i en personligt velskrevet speak i jeg-form, og hun snakker med fra kameraets position, livlig, veloplagt, klog. Det er rigtig godt. Storyline er Mette Askovs bevidste og valgte projekter med sig selv på vej ud af lidelsen.

Den kloge og gode ven filmer uvejr. Han er et kæresteprojekt, som filmen følger til dets forlis, men filmen inkluderer hans landskabsoptagelser af naturen i oprør, de bliver selvfølgelige vignetter. Mette Askovs veninde har en dyrebutik. Veninden er også et projekt, et kollegialt og professionelt projekt, som filmen følger. Det bliver den fortælling af almindeligt menneskeliv med arbejde og hverdag og store, men gennemførlige forehavender, som Mette Askov kan skubbe ind som alternativ til livet i bofællesskabet. Et holdbart alternativ, jeg ledes til at tro på. Veninden ser ikke Mette Askov som syg, slet ikke. Og så er der møderne med psykologen, som er et sideløbende behandlingsprojekt, som filmen følger gennem et succesrigt forløb. En vigtig traumatisk oplevelse i Mettes ungdom klarlægges og psykologen forklarer Mette, at hendes reaktioner på den begivenhed er normale, ja, netop normale. Og så er der filmen, jeg sidder og ser, som Mette Askov nævner blandt sine vigtige projekter, da hun opregner dem.

Under hesteterapien viser det sig, at den hest, Mette Askov skal føre, er ganske almindelig tryg ved hende, og gårdens kat søger ganske naturligt hen til netop hende. Katrine Borre noterer det præcist det rigtige sted. Mette er i bedring. Og sådan er filmen en omhyggelig redegørelse, den er klippet i scener (ikke i argumenter), dens form er en serie opmærksomme, lyttende tilstedeværelser, som jeg inviteres til at deltage i. Men der konkuderes ikke på mine vegne. Heller ikke om den psykiatriske forståelse, den er der bare som en stor, stor del af Mettes dage. Den forsigtige, men præcist formulerede undren over medicineringen er bygget ind i dialogen mellem de involverede, her blander instruktøren sig ikke, hun lader os kun lytte med. Først tre fjerdedele inde i filmen røber hun selv i sin fortællestemme en mild undren: hvorfor har lægerne gennem de mange år ikke interesseret sig for Mettes livhistorie? Jeg synes, det er smukt – og stærkt virkende. Det er på sådanne måder en fin og meget vigtig film.

Som Lasse Jensen (Mennesker og Medier) skrev på sin Facebookside: ”Her er et eksempel på en film, der kun er blevet til, fordi instruktøren bare VILLE lave et vigtigt og menneskeligt indspark i psykiatridebatten, selv om hun stot set ikke fik en krone for det… den bør vises i tv.” Katrine Borre har lavet alt selv: instruktion, foto, klip, været med på lydmix og så har hun altså stået for selve produktionen ved sit eget selskab.

Danmark, 2014, 58 min.

Link til katrineborrefilm.com (En række af Katrine Borres film kan streames herfra)

Guardian Film Awards and Post Oscar Recognition

For me the best English language newspaper critiques and general film coverage is to be found in The Guardian and New York Times. It was therefore with great pleasure that The Guardian, in their first Film Awards, placed The Act of Killing on the top as best film:

”The Act of Killing has taken the top prize at the inaugural Guardian Film Awards. Joshua Oppenheimer’s surreal study of the Indonesian death squads of the 1960s was nominated in three fields – best director, biggest game-changer and best film. It triumphed in best film over the Oscar winners 12 Years a Slave and Gravity, as well as two other foreign language films, The Great Beauty and Blue is the Warmest Colour.” In other words not in a documentary category. You can read more about the award and the voting clicking on link below.

From the NY Times – you need a subscription – I receive every friday a list of all new theatrical releases, including news and features. Melena Ryzik, who predicted that ”Twenty Feet from Stardom” would win the Oscar as the best feature documentary, had this week a fine article titled ”When the Battle Is Over, What remains Is… Art”. She writes after having reported on the Oscars for five years: … (I’ve learnt) about moviemaking, about celebrity and mostly about how to keep artistic faith in balance with professional cynicism. It’s true: The Oscars are a popularity contest, with prizes conferred for a career narrative as often as for an individual performance, and undoubtedly there are politics at play. Otherwise, the campaigns would be dull, and the consultants wouldn’t be paid all that money…

At the end of her article she puts the spotlight on Sara Ishaq’s “Karama has No Walls” (photo). She had talked to the 1ad Abdurahman Hussain, who said that at first, they wanted to make a YouTube video, but then they realized it was a bigger story. Their 30-minute short, “Karama Has No Walls” — “karama” is Arabic for dignity — uses footage shot guerrilla-style by those in the middle of the action. The director, Sara Ishaq, a Scottish-Yemeni woman, submitted it to film festivals, which led to its Oscar nomination. The Oscars are not well known, culturally, in Yemen, Mr. Hussain said. Still, after the nomination, the filmmakers met with the Yemeni prime minister, and there have been government-sponsored screenings.

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/mar/06/the-act-of-killing-prize-guardian-film-awards

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/05/movies/awardsseason/keeping-faith-in-oscar-filmmakers-work-and-sacrifice.html?emc=edit_fm_20140307&nl=movies&nlid=67120337&_r=0

IDFAcademy Summer School

Normally we don’t advertise training programmes but as we know that this one is NOT limited to EUrope and we have many talented documentary filmmakers as readers…

“The IDFAcademy Summer School is open to:
• Directors making their first or second feature documentary (no filmschool students)
• Ten projects in the script development phase and six projects in the rough-cut phase
• Creative documentary projects
 
Call for entry: IDFAcademy Summer School 2014

IDFA is looking for emerging documentary film talent!

From June 30 through July 5 2014, IDFA organizes the seventh edition of the Summer School: a tailor-made training program for emerging filmmakers, taking place in Amsterdam and aimed at strengthening the narrative structure of documentary projects. Around sixteen projects from all over the world will be selected for the Summer School 2014. The deadline for submission is April 1, 2014.

IDFAcademy Summer School offers the opportunity to meet and work with highly esteemed filmmakers and film professionals who are willing to share their knowledge and experience with emerging film talent. The Summer School combines individual coaching with group sessions and an inspiring cultural program in a relaxed atmosphere. It offers two types of training possibilities: Script Development and Editing Consultancy.
 
Filmmakers who are selected have the opportunity to bring a sparring partner: a creative producer, a co-scriptwriter, or an editor in the case of participation in Editing Consultancy. If a project is selected, a participation fee for two persons of a total of €1000,- (excluding VAT) or in case of one person for a total of €750,- (excluding VAT) is due. This fee does not cover travel, accommodation or food expenses. There is a scholarship available per project (accommodation) for international participants.
 
Participants will be coached by eight international documentary experts. In previous years experts like Gianfranco Rosi (Director, Italy), Audrius Stonys (Director, Lithuania), Emma Davie (director, Scotland), Kate Townsend (Executive Producer BBC Storyville, UK), Sabine Bubeck-Paaz (Commissioning Editor ZDF, Germany), Debra Zimmerman (Distributor Women Make Movies, USA), Jesper Osmund (Editor, Denmark) and Peter Wintonick (Producer/ Director, Canada) were tutors at the Summer School.

For more information IDFAcademy Summer School how to apply, see http://www.idfa.nl/industry/idfacademy/attend-summer-school.aspx

AmDocs Palm Springs

It was one of these pleasant surprises. Last summer I got a FB message from a Teddy Grouya, who invited me to come to his festival in California. The surprise was double as he wrote to me in Danish (well not perfect but totally understandable). We met in Leipzig, where the kind and committed man told me more about his festival and revealed that he had been in Denmark in his youth as a student. And there we are – I will be in Palm Springs March 27-31, where the festival runs its third edition. In the following I have taken quotes from the website of the festival that shows documentaries, short and long, and animation films from the US and the rest of the world.

“This year, the American Documentary Film Festival and Film Fund will screen over 100 films over its five day run at three Coachella Valley venues. “We’re utilizing six screens this year,” said Festival Director and Founder, Ted Grouya. “It will be our largest festival ever.””

My visit to AmDocs include three elements. I am going to be a juror for 10 American feauture docs, I am to be on a panel with critics and film writers and I am invited to observe the Film Fund Pitch Competition.

Some words about the latter first: “In addition to our annual 5-day film festival, we are proud to share the American Documentary Film Fund with independent American filmmakers who will participate and compete for financing for new projects as well as works in progress.  An amount up to $50,000 may be awarded or distributed in any given year. A panel of film industry professionals will review a select group of documentary filmmaker projects for funding consideration. Filmmakers will provide detailed story outlines and budgets for their works in progress or new projects. Filmmakers will screen a five (5) minute preview of their film projects before the industry panel and take part in a 10 minute Q&A.” It sounds like the way we do it in Europe, but is there an American touch?

And words about the films at the festival that The MovieMaker Magazine nominated the festival as ”one of the world’s coolest documentary film

festivals”: ”Opening night gala includes the screening of Julie Cohen’s ”I Live to Sing” with in-person vocal performances by the film’s cast and a Q&A with the director.” The film “is a documentary and performance film following three of the opera school’s top students through a year in the program. Cohen & her team travel with the students from their townships, where they’ve faced financial hardship (and, in some cases, health struggles) to Cape Town, where they perform in the city’s Opera Hall (once a flash point in the anti-apartheid movement), and to New York, where they sing at the prestigious Glimmerglass Festival.”

Actuality – “On March 2, 2014, Academy Award®-winning director Malcolm Clarke won a second Oscar® for the moving, uplifting, and brilliantly-told story of Alice Herz Sommer, the world’s oldest living Holocaust survivor.  Alice, at age 109 during filming, has been a pianist and teacher during her extraordinary life, and — in the film — still treats her neighbors almost daily to the same beautiful piano music she’s been playing for over a century.” “The Lady in no.6” will be shown at Amdocs, PHOTO. 

And many many more films that (especially the Americans) I have not seen, including ”two episodes of Oliver Stone’s series ”Untold History of The United States”… Here is a re-examination of some of the under-reported and darkest parts of American modern history using little known documents and newly uncovered archival material.  We see beyond official versions of events to the deeper causes and implications, and explore how pivotal moments from the past still have resonant themes for the present day.” 

From abroad – there are pretty many German films but also films from Iran and China. There is the Polish ”Deep Love” by Jan P. Matuszynski, ”Before the Revolution” (in Iran) by Dan Shadur and Babak Heymann, ”Chimeras” on two Chinese artists by Finnish Mika Mattila, Stefan Tolz film from Georgia ”Full Speed Westward”, ”Normalization” by Robert Kirchhoff from Slovakia, three Danish films– many filmmakers are present and the films run from morning till night.

http://www.americandocumentaryfilmfestival.com/

Voldtægt som Krigsvåben

Danish veteran documentarians Katia Forbert Petersen and Annette Mari Olsen premiered yesterday their new documentary, that has the English title ”Mission Rape – A Tool of War”, a film that will travel not only to the foreign broadcasters involved but also to festivals. The premiere yesterday in a Copenhagen cinema was folllowed by a debate about the theme, described here at the site of The Danish Film Institute:” “Mission Rape” is a creative documentary film which takes a closer look at a dilemma in international law – how the healing-process is affected when rapists are not prosecuted and convicted for the crimes they have committed. Instead the rapists have been punished for Crime against Humanity or other serious war crimes. In the aftermath of any war in which rape has been systemically used as a weapon, it is crucial to the healing process that war criminals are convicted for all war crimes, including sexual violence.” Change to Danish language:

Det var et flot arrangement, som fandt sted i Grand Teatret i går aftes: Indledning ved DR’s Mette Hoffmann-Meyer, som hyldede de to instruktørers engagement og professionalisme, som hun havde nydt godt af i mange år. Fulgt af en indledning af de to instruktører – Katia Forbert fortalte, at hun første gang havde hørt bosniske kvinder fortælle om grusomme voldtægter for 22 år siden på flygtningeskibet Flotel Europa. Siden da havde de to mange gange taget tilløb til at lave en film om emnet.

Nu er den der så, filmen, en stærk dokumentation i en blanding af samtaler med ofre, arkivmateriale fra krigen på Balkan og fra Krigstribunalet i den Haag, oprettet i 1993, ansigter fyldt med smerte, den store bestræbelse for at blive anerkendt som krigsoffer – og ikke mindst dette, citeret fra Det Danske Filminstituts faktablad om filmen:

Hver dag mødes en gruppe kvinder i en forening beliggende i forstad til Sarajevo. Alle har de en fælles historie. Foreningen er filmens

omdrejningspunkt og her finder vi filmens udspring. Under krigen på Balkan i årene 1992-1995 bliver mellem 40 – 50.000 kvinder, udsat for voldtægt. Voldtægt bliver brugt som krigsstrategi, på samme måde som vi er vidne til, gennem mange hundrede års krigshistorie…

Filmens hovedperson er Foreningens leder, som med kollegerne indsamler vidnesbyrd fra kvinder, som er blevet voldtaget (det kan være bosniakker, kroater eller serbere) og sender dem til den Haag. Selv blev hun voldtaget af Milan Lukic, som blev dømt til livstidsfængsel, for ”crimes against humanity and violations of war customs” men ikke for udøvelse af voldtægt. Filmen nævner i en tekst til slut at 25-40.000 kvinder blev voldtaget under krigen på Balkan, men kun 61 er blevet dømt for voldtægt.

I panelet efter visningen af filmen sad bl.a. den danske dommer Frederik Harhoff (der blev kendt inhabil i krigsforbrydersagen mod serbiske Vojislav Seselj efter at have kritiseret tribunalets amerikanske leder for at have presset meddommere til at ændre praksis for strafudmåling i mildere retning). Han roste filmen for at ”være modig” og at ”få sagt  noget om det retsvæsen, som jeg har været en del af”. Han sagde, at voldtægt har optrådt som en ”underforbrydelse”, men at det burde anerkendes – som filmen plæderer for – som en del af en krigsstrategi, hvilket kan godtgøres ved at pege på det mønster, som voldtægternes gerningssteder udgør. Det var oplagt, sagde Harhoff, at målet var at få den angrebne befolkning til at forlade deres hjem.

Tidligere minister, journalist Birte Weiss, som har skrevet bøger om krigen i Bosnien, og som har optrådt som vidne ved åbningen af en massegrav, roste også filmen og dens skildring af de stærke kvindegrupper og ”hvis en forsoning lykkes, så er det kvindernes skyld”.

Forsvarsadvokat Bjørn Elmquist pegede på, at det ”jo halter slemt med de international domstole, også den i den Haag, hvor amerikanerne ikke vil være med…”. Det er stadig ”Victor’s Justice”, som hersker, sagde han.

Der var spørgsmål og kommentarer fra salen – den første var at ”vi mænd er nogle værre dyr og der mangler kvindelige dommere”. Birte Weiss fremhævede Nusreta Savic, som også optræder i filmen, og som var i kz-lejren Omarska. ” Hendes græsrodsarbejde har fået den internationale jura til at flytte sig.”

Filmen vises på DR2 den 12. Marts kl. 19.50  

Danmark, 2014, 61 mins.

http://www.dfi.dk/faktaomfilm/film/da/81025.aspx?id=81025

http://www.dfi.dk/faktaomfilm/film/en/81025.aspx?id=81025

Oscar 2014 – Long Documentary

… and the winner is ”Twenty Feet from Stardom” by Morgan Neville, in the category Feature Length Documentary.

”So Hollywood is Still Hollywood”, wrote Niels Pagh Andersen on FB. The editor of ”The Act of Killing” expressed indirectly what many had expected, including the NYTimes Melena Ryzik in her prediction, that the feel-good documentary from American showbusiness ”Twenty Feet from Stardom” would take the Oscar. Her argument: (it is) 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 was the decision of the Academy members, a disappointment for the many, including me, who had hoped for ”The Act of Killing” after the many awards to an innovative, controversial film with big impact.

The winner does not even approximately reach that standard. Anyway ”Hollywood is Hollywood” and personally the Oscar has not really had my interest before these last two years after the change of the rules to get there. So what is to be saluted is that quality films like ”Five Broken Cameras”, ”Sugarman”, ”The Gatekeepers” last year and ”The Act of Killing”, ”The Square”, ”Cutie and the Boxer” this year, get all the well deserved publicity through being nominated.

One last thing: Some have called the Oscar the world championship for documentaries… forget about that, there are many masterly films worldwide that have no chances to get to the Oscar.