The Act of Killing (POV 2014) won the award for Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking at the 2014 Cinema Eye Honors.
The best part of the Cinema Eye Honors, which took place last night at the Museum of the Moving Image, was the warm-up party, when you could just stand there, and you could survey a vast swath of the documentary community in one room. I couldn’t stop myself—maybe I need to cut down on Homeland and Walking Dead—from wondering if you wiped everyone out, how long it would take for the documentary world to recover.
As I waded past filmmakers (Alex Gibney, here; Liz Garbus, there; Ross Kauffman, here; etc.), I spoke to Cinema Eye nominees who didn’t care a bit about who was about to win. “So many people here are my friends, so if I don’t get it, a friend probably will. And I’m rooting for them,” said Jason Osder, director of Let the Fire Burn, who was up for Outstanding Debut Film. The common refrain was that this was a family of friends, so there could be no losing here (emcee AJ Schnack later cracked that the only loser was Seaworld, the subject of the critical Black Fish).
January marks the end of a tiring year of touring the festival circuit for a lot of the people on hand, and the beginning of a new year of filmmaking or presenting of new films. (Sundance is just weeks away). Of course, there are those lucky few, or 15, films still up for a possible Oscar, but I’m sure their filmmakers won’t mind trekking up the red carpet, if called upon.
The truth is, for the nominees, the award show is the end of a days’old, skull-and-bones, drinking crawl that their Cinema Eye hosts have taken them on. Any competitive streaks had been beaten out of them by drink and karaoke.
The show got off to a nice start with a humble-brag surprise: Michael Moore sauntered out and told of how he got his start in documentary filmmaking, thanks to George Bush (the first). He even did a little jig. “That’s all the twerking you’re going to see,” he joked.
The big winners, if we can call them that, were The Act of Killing, which won the top prize, and Sarah Polley, who won best director, for Stories We Tell. Zachary Heinzerling’s Cutie and the Boxer also did quite well, picking up three awards (best debut, graphics and original score). Highlights of what turned into a very long evening (unless they’re going to provide white powder enhancements in the bathroom, Cinema Eye is going to have to figure out a way to cut it down from 3 and half hours) included legendary feature editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, giving out the editing award, and a clip of Barbara Kopple winning her Oscar, in 1976, for Harlan County, USA, when she picked up her Cinema Eye Legacy Award.
The Audience Award was interesting. The prize went to Sound City, the rock doc made by Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl. Schnack said that there were more than 40,000 online votes, compared to the previous high of 11,000. While this is a strong indication that documentary is becoming more accepted into popular culture—and that Cinema Eye is a part of that—the fact that Sound City won is a distinct reminder that documentary is a relatively small subculture. There’s no way that last night’s audience assembled in that room would have ever voted for Sound City as its favorite film. It was an insider’s crowd, and that’s alright, but watching Dave Grohl doing a taped acceptance jig made the crowd assembled look even more fringe. (Again; and that’s ok.)
The evening had its share of awkward, slow moments, and weird, funny ones, along with several poignant speeches, but I was most taken with what Act of Killing director, Joshua Oppenheimer, had to say when he accepted his honor. The film is incredible, but it rides a sharp edge, by embracing, in a way, the perpetrators of mass murder in Indonesia. But I learned last night, according to Oppenheimer, that it was after he made a film with the victims, that he was asked by them to approach the killers. That, and learning that he had watched Harlan County, USA at the beginning stages of Act of Killing, both helped allay my concerns about the film, and point out how his groundbreaking film is a crowning achievement in the evolution of documentaries.
Here’s the complete list of winners, provided by the Cinema Eye Honors:
Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking
The Act of Killing
Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer
Produced by Signe Byrge Sørensen
Presented by Steve James
Outstanding Achievement in Direction
Sarah Polley
Stories We Tell
Presented by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady
Outstanding Achievement in Editing
Nels Bangerter
Let the Fire Burn
Presented by Thelma Schoonmaker
Audience Choice Prize
Sound City
Directed by Dave Grohl
Presented by John Flansburgh and Robin “Goldie” Goldwasser
Outstanding Achievement in Production
Signe Byrge Sørensen
The Act of Killing
Presented by Jennifer Fox and Ross Kauffman
Outstanding Nonfiction Film for Television
The Crash Reel
Directed by Lucy Walker
Produced by Julian Cautherley and Lucy Walker
For HBO Documentary Films: Executive Producer Sheila Nevins and Supervising Producer Sara Bernstein
Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Short Filmmaking
A Story for the Modlins
Directed by Sergio Oksman
Presented by Kirsten Johnson and Darius Marder
Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography
Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel
Leviathan
Presented by Kirsten Johnson and Darius Marder
Heterodox Award
Post Tenebras Lux
Directed by Carlos Reygadas
Presented by Jeremy Saulnier and Angela Tucker
Outstanding Achievement in an Original Music Score
Yasuaki Shimizu
Cutie and the Boxer
Presented by Jeff Reichert and Farihah Zaman
Spotlight Award
The Last Station
Directed by Cristian Soto and Catalina Vergara
Presented by Jeff Reichert and Farihah Zaman
Outstanding Achievement in Graphic Design and Animation
Art Jail
Cutie and the Boxer
Presented by Chris Hegedus and Jehane Noujaim
Outstanding Achievement in a Debut Feature Film
Zachary Heinzerling
Cutie and the Boxer
Presented by Chris Hegedus and Jehane Noujaim
Legacy Award
Harlan County, USA
Directed and Produced by Barbara Kopple
Presented by Kristi Jacobson
Hell Yeah Prize
Josh Fox
Gasland and Gasland, Part 2
Presented by AJ Schnack
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