The IDA Documentary Awards announced its shortlists of the year’s top documentaries Tuesday, boosting Oscar prospects for a select group of feature films and shorts.
Some of the most touted documentaries of the year made the cut, but the list is equally newsworthy for what got left out. In the features categories, 16 films will compete for Best Documentary at the awards show set for December 4 in Los Angeles, among them: A Fox Under a Pink Moon, A Life Illuminated, Birds of War, Nuestra Tierra, Nuisance Bear, One in a Million, and You Can See Everything – the Elizabeth Holmes documentary that has become a runaway box office hit.
Also making the list – Julia Loktev’s My Undesirable Friends: Part II – Exile, the follow up to her Oscar-shortlisted My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow. Two-time Oscar winner Ben Proudfoot earned a spot on the list with his feature The Eyes of Ghana, and Pegah Ahangarani’s Rehearsals for a Revolution, winner of the L’Oeil d’or prize at Cannes, also made the list.
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But there were some shocking snubs in that category: no love for Musk, 14th, nor two prominent Gaza-themed films – American Doctor and NAZA. Also missing out was Once Upon a Time in Harlem, one of the most honored documentaries of the year. The shortlist selection committee favored some comparatively obscure titles, like Concrete Land, directed by Asmahan Bkerat; Filthy, directed by Bàrbara Mestanza and Marc Pujolar; Silver, directed by Natalia Koniarz, and The Fabulous Time Machine, directed by Eliza Capai.
Scroll for the complete lists.
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On the shortlist of short films, a dozen documentaries made the cut, including They’re Here, directed by Oscar winner Laura Poitras and Rachel Lauren Mueller. That timely documentary, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival, examines the deadly ICE occupation of Minneapolis, MN. Bill Morrison, Oscar-nominated last year for Incident, made the list with his latest short, Sawyer Avenue, Sunday Afternoon. That documentary also centers on ICE, in this case, the seizure of a man by federal agents “without a warrant on a residential street in Chicago.”
Remarkably, four New York Times Op-Docs films made the shorts shortlist: A Wolf in the Suburbs, directed by Amélie Hardy; Sanyi Kakas (Sanyi the Rooster), directed by Lotte Salomons; Son, directed by Leona Cauklija, and Stalin Boys, directed by Bianca Giaever and Ora DeKornfeld.
Director Yoruba Richen also made the shorts shortlist with Free Joan Little, as did Oscar-nominated filmmaker Waad Al-Kateab with Maybe Tomorrow, co-directed with Wafa Mustafa. But in a surprise, two-time Oscar nominee Joshua Oppenheimer didn’t get recognized for his new short, The Revolution Against Death (recently acquired by the New York Times Op-Docs).
The 42nd IDA Documentary Awards will be presented on Friday, December 4 at The Ebell of Los Angeles. Tabitha Jackson, director of Film Forum in New York City and former director of the Sundance Film Festival, will host the ceremony. In a release, the nonprofit IDA said, “At a time when filmmakers face critical distribution and funding challenges, IDA looks forward to gathering and uplifting this irrepressible global community and introducing their work to new audiences.”
The five nominees for the Best Feature and Best Short categories will be selected from the shortlists that were revealed Tuesday, with nominations set to be announced on November 17. “IDA members from 100 countries will view and vote for the Best Feature and Best Short category winners until voting closes on November 29.”
Additional IDA Awards will be presented in the following categories with winners selected by jurors consisting of 200+ documentary professionals from 60+ countries: Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Original Music Score, Best Production, Best Sound Design, Best Writing, Best Curated Series, Best Episodic Series, Best Documentary Not in the English Language, Best Music Documentary, Best Student Documentary Award, the ABC News VideoSource Award, and the Pare Lorentz Award.
These are the films that made the shortlists announced Tuesday:
Best Feature Documentary Shortlist
In alphabetical order by film title.
● A Fox Under a Pink Moon (Iran, Türkiye, Greece | KINO LORBER | Director: Mehrdad Oskouei, Co-Director Soraya Akhlaghi | Producers: Mehrdad Oskouei, Siavash Jamali)
● A Life Illuminated (United States | Fourth Act Film | Director: Tasha Van Zandt | Producers: Tasha Van Zandt, Sebastian Zeck, Jessica Harrop, Kathryn Everett)
● Birds of War (Syria, Lebanon, United Kingdom | Dogwoof | Directors: Janay Boulos, Abd Alkader Habak | Producers: Sonja Henrici, Janay Boulos, Abd Alkader Habak)
● Concrete Land (Jordan, Palestine, Qatar | Director: Asmahan Bkerat | Producers: Ban Maraqa, Asmahan Bkerat)
● Do You Love Me (Lebanon, France, Germany | ICARUS/ Rapid Eye Movies | Director: Lana Daher | Producers: Jean-Laurent Csinidis, Lana Daher)
● Filthy (Spain | Directors: Bàrbara Mestanza, Marc Pujolar | Producer: Pau Sanclemente)
● My Undesirable Friends: Part II — Exile (United States | MUBI | Director: Julia Loktev | Producer: Julia Loktev)
● Nuestra Tierra (Our Land) (Argentina, United States, Mexico | Strand Releasing | Director: Lucrecia Martel | Producers: Benjamín Domenech, Santiago Gallelli, Matías Roveda, Joslyn Barnes, Javier Leoz, Julio Chavezmontes)
● Nuisance Bear (United States, Canada, United Kingdom | MUBI | Directors: Jack Weisman, Gabriela Osio Vanden | Producers: Will N. Miller, Michael Code, Teddy Leifer, Jack Weisman, Gabriela Osio Vanden)
● One in a Million (United Kingdom, United States | PBS Distribution | Directors: Itab Azzam, Jack MacInnes | Producers: Itab Azzam, Jack MacInnes, Will Anderson, James Bluemel, Andrew Palmer, Raney Aronson-Rath)
● Rehearsals for a Revolution (Czech Republic, Spain | Sony Pictures Classics | Director: Pegah Ahangarani | Producers: Kaveh Farnam, Adria Mones)
● Silver (Poland, Germany, Norway, Bolivia | Director: Natalia Koniarz | Producer: Maciej Kubicki)
● The Eyes of Ghana (United States, United Kingdom, Ghana | Director: Ben Proudfoot | Producers: Nana Adwoa Frimpong, Ben Proudfoot, Anita Afonu, Moses Bwayo, Brandon Somerhalder, Ethan Lewis, Vinnie Malhotra)
● The Fabulous Time Machine (Brazil | Split Screen | Director: Eliza Capai | Producer: Mariana Genescá)
● To Hold a Mountain (Serbia, Montenegro, France | Submarine | Directors: Biljana Tutorov, Petar Glomazić | Producer: Biljana Tutorov)
● You Can See Everything (United States | A24 | Directors: Nathan Fielder, Lance Oppenheim | Producers: Nathan Fielder, Lance Oppenheim, Tatiana Bears, Maggie Ambrose, Jack Davis)
Best Short Documentary Shortlist
In alphabetical order by film title.
●A Wolf in the Suburbs (Canada | The New York Times Op-Docs | Director: Amélie Hardy | Producer: Rosalie Chicoine Perreault)
● Free Joan Little (United States | PBS | Director: Yoruba Richen | Producer: Christalyn Hampton)
● Fruits of Despair (Iran | Raina Film Festival Distribution | Director: Nima Nassaj | Producers: Faezeh Davoodi, Asghar Torabi, Nima Nassaj, Mahshid Afzali)
● How to Catch a Butterfly (Netherlands | Director: Kiriko Mechanicus | Producer: Ilja Roomans)
● Lost Songs of Sundari (India | Director: Sudarshan Sawant | Producers: Sudarshan Sawant, Charles Correa Foundation)
● Maybe Tomorrow (United Kingdom, Germany, Syria | Channel 4 | Directors: Waad Al-Kateab, Wafa Mustafa | Producers: Waad Al-Kateab, Joanna Natasegara, Abigail Anketell-Jones)
● Sanyi Kakas (Sanyi the Rooster) (Hungary, Netherlands | The New York Times Op-Docs/Amsterdam University of the Arts | Director: Lotte Salomons | Producers: Raphael Hogers, Nova Nagel, Kes Raven)
● Sawyer Avenue, Sunday Afternoon (United States | The New Yorker | Director: Bill Morrison | Producers: Bill Morrison, Jamie Kalven, María Inés Zamudio)
● Son (Sweden | The New York Times Op-Docs | Director: Leona Cauklija | Producers: Balder Ljunggren, Joel Viksten Abrahamsson)
● Stalin Boys (United States | The New York Times Op-Docs | Directors: Bianca Giaever, Ora DeKornfeld | Producers: Bianca Giaever, Ora DeKornfeld, Alejandra Vasquez, Sam Osborn)
● The Hotline (United States | HBO Max | Directors: Ricki Stern, Jesse Sweet | Producers: Ricki Stern, Simon Killmurry)
● They’re Here (United States | Directors: Laura Poitras, Rachel Lauren Mueller | Producers: Rachel Lauren Mueller, Laura Poitras, Yoni Golijov)
