18 Months After it Won the Oscar, TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE Wins an Emmy

They held the News and Documentary Emmys last night in New York and, per usual, the night was a mix of broadcast journalism icons (including lifetime honoree Barbara Walters) and documentary films that first saw the light of day back during the Bush administration (George H.W.?).

The big winner of the evening (on the doc side) was Alex Gibney's TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE, which won the Oscar in February '08 and had its official premiere at Tribeca '07.  It took the prize for Best Documentary as well as an Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Research.

Another winner, James Moll's INHERITANCE, screened at the 2006 Los Angeles Film Festival.  That film won last night for Outstanding Interview.

Why the long turnaround?  INHERITANCE didn't air on P.O.V. until December 2008, TAXI screened on HBO last September.  That may say more about the long road that nonfiction filmmakers face between premiere and broadcast than anything else.

Still, it's hard to fully understand the difference between the Primetime Emmys, which this year honored ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED, and the News and Documentary Emmys.  They're handed out by different organizations (NATAS and ATAS split apart in 1977 and have been skirmishing ever since) at separate ceremonies.  Both present awards for nonfiction programming and both co-mingle what most of us would consider "documentary" with another field.  The Primetime Emmys (ATAS) mixes docs with reality television, News and Docs (NATAS) with longform journalism of the 60 Minutes/Frontline/CNN Presents variety.

Therefore, last night, the exquisite cinematography of UP THE YANGTZE lost out to Frontline's THE WAR BRIEFING and the editing of THE DEVIL CAME ON HORSEBACK came up against the Travel Channel's Wild China.  I won't pretend to understand any of it.

Here's a full list of winners, which also includes an Emmy for 2007's shock Best Documentary winner at the IDA Awards, A WALK TO BEAUTIFUL.

Comments

[Wajahat]

After all still in the top ones of 2008, Premiere magazine named it the fifth best and Bill White of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer named it the seventh best film. Even I am thinking of adding the film's official website to the useful resources page of my company website taxitofrom.com soon.