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Europeans Get in the Awards Spirit: BEACHES, BURMA, LA DANSE, DEFAMATION, MUGABE & 45365 Amongst Trophy Seekers

If its October, we're starting to get serious about gearing up for this year's awards season.  Nominations for the IDA Awards and for the Gothams will come this month, with Cinema Eye nominations announced early in November in Sheffield.  And behind the scenes, Oscar and Independent Spirit Award voters are watching, taking and debating this year's crop of docs.

And as these nominations and shortlists and top 10s are announced, we begin to get a collective sense of where things are headed, vis-à-vis the Kodak Theatre in March.  For example, Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Phrasavath's THE BETRAYAL wasn't seen as a big Oscar contender until it began to appear again and again on year end lists and nominations.

This week, two groups in Europe - the folks at the London Film Festival and at the European Film Award - announced nominees/finalists for the The Grierson Award and the Prix Arte for Best Documentary, respectively.

The European Film Award folks, who announced their ten nominees today, have a flair for spotlighting films that have not yet screened or just premiered in North America, although a handful screened last November at IDFA.  Last year's winner, Helena Trestikova’s RENE, had a quiet North American premiere at SXSW 2009 prior to a screening in Toronto at this year's Hot Docs.

Amongst the films that we have gotten a chance to screen (on this side of the Atlantic), the big names are Anders Ostergaard's BURMA VJ (winner at CPH:DOX, IDFA and Full Frame), Agnes Varda's self-portrait THE BEACHES OF AGNES (LES PLAGES D'AGNES), Yoav Shamir's DEFAMATION (screened at Hot Docs, Tribeca and Silverdocs), Peter Kerekes' COOKING HISTORY (Hot Docs, Silverdocs) and Peter Liechti's THE SOUNDS OF INSECTS (also Hot Docs, Silverdocs).

DEFAMATION also shows up on the London Film Festival's shortlist for their Grierson Award, denoting the best documentary at the festival.  Among the other finalists: Bill and Turner Ross' SXSW winner 45365, Silverdocs' champ MUGABE AND THE WHITE AFRICAN, Frederick Wiseman's LA DANSE - THE PARIS OPERA BALLET and festival fave SERGIO.

Full list of nominations/finalists below:

The European Film Awards Prix Arte for Best Documentary

THE BEACHES OF AGNES (LES PLAGES D'AGNES)
BELOW SEA LEVEL
BURMA VJ
COOKING HISTORY
THE DAMNED OF THE SEA
DEFAMATION
THE HEART OF JENIN
PIANOMANIA
THE SOUNDS OF INSECTS - RECORD OF A MUMMY
THE WOMAN WITH THE 5 ELEPHANTS (DIE FRAU MIT DEN 5 ELEFANTEN)

The London Film Festival Grierson Award Finalists

45365
LA DANSE - THE PARIS OPERA BALLET
DEFAMATION
HAVE YOU HEARD FROM JOHANNESBURG: THE BOTTOM LINE
MUGABE AND THE WHITE AFRICAN
OSADNE
SERGIO

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.

BURMA VJ, THE COVE, WAY WE GET BY Lead 2009 Feature Honor Roll

Our first edition of the 2009 Nonfiction Feature Honor Roll is now up, tracking top tier festival awards (and later critics and institutional prizes) for this year's crop of documentaries.  And just looking at sheer numbers, three films are currently leading the list of 2009 titles: Anders Østergaard's BURMA VJ, Louie Psihoyos' THE COVE and Aron Gaudet's THE WAY WE GET BY.

BURMA VJ scored multiple awards at this year's Full Frame Film Festival as well as prizes at Sundance, San Francisco, Thessaloniki and last year's IDFA (not included on this year's Honor Roll).  THE COVE is this year's Audience Award champ, picking up the title at Sundance, Hot Docs, Seattle and Silverdocs, among others.  And THE WAY WE GET BY has received jury prizes and honorable mentions, including a Special Jury prize at SXSW and the Audience Award at Full Frame.

History Channel's 102 MINUTES and Marina Zenovich's POLANSKI Top Primetime Emmys

The Creative Arts portion of the 2009 Emmy Awards were held tonight in downtown Los Angeles with the History Channel's 9/11 recap 102 MINUTES THAT CHANGED AMERICA and HBO's Sundance 2008 acquisition ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED both netting multiple Emmys.  POLANSKI director Marina Zenovich picked up two Emmys tonight - one for Oustanding Direction and another for Outstanding Writing.

POLANSKI's win was just the tip of the iceberg for regular Emmy darling HBO.  The network won the most Emmys of any tonight, including three for its narrative version of the Maysles Brothers classic GREY GARDENS.  The net received the Exceptional Merit award and the Outstanding Childrens Nonfiction Special for two films from their acclaimed Alzheimer's Project - and HBO's grande dame Sheila Nevins was presented with the Academy's Governors Award, in addition to two other Emmy's she won tonight.

Full list of winners in nonfiction categories after the jump.

HBO's POLANSKI Scores Big at Primetime Emmy Nods; P.O.V. Lead at News & Doc Emmys

It was a regular orgy of Emmy nominations last week (and by last we mean like a week and a half ago - blame it on the rain) as both the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (presenters of the Primetime Emmy Awards that give out statuettes to "Mad Men" and "30 Rock") and the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (which give the Daytime Emmys, the Sports Emmys as well as the News and Documentary Emmys) announced this year's nominees.

We tend to value the Primetime Emmy a bit more than those presented by NATAS (maybe that's cause we won one of the latter, maybe it's because NATAS is honoring films that were at festivals or in theaters two and three years ago, maybe it's because the nominees often seem to make no particular sense), but we have to at least a little love to NATAS for giving so many prizes that honor the craft of nonfiction filmmaking (they've even got the word "craft" in the title of the awards), even if they don't have one for directing (but we digress). 

P.O.V., the outstanding PBS series focusing on independent documentaries, led this year's news and documentary nominees with a record 10 nominations spread across nine different films.  Only James Moll's INHERITANCE, which first popped up on our radar at the Los Angeles Film Festival in 2006 (no, that's not a typo), received more than one nomination.  P.O.V. was second only to CBS' venerable newsmagazine "60 Minutes", which received 15 nominations. 

HBO received 9 nominations for its Documentary Films unit, including three for 2008 Oscar winner TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE, which HBO picked up after Discovery Channel declined to air it (in what many viewed as a political move for the Silver Spring-based conglomerate).  Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern's THE DEVIL CAME ON HORSEBACK was also nominated for three awards, but the king of this year's N&D Emmy jungle is GORILLA MURDERS, nominated for four awards.  Both GORILLA and DEVIL came to your TV via the National Geographic Channel.

Meanwhile, over at the Primetime Emmys, HBO scored again, as Marina Zenovich's ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED was nominated in five categories - including Directing, Writing, Editing and Outstanding Nonfiction Special - and will be one of the only true nonfiction features showing up for the Creative Arts Emmys, as most of its competition are reality television and reality compeition titles.  While in a normal year, POLANSKI would be considered a frontrunner for "Outstanding Nonfiction Special", it will have tough competition from another Hollywood subject - NBC's FARRAH'S STORY.

Select nominees for both sets of awards after the jump.  One nomination outside of nonfiction categories worth noting is a nod for SPELLBOUND director Jeffrey Blitz for Outstanding Achievement in Directing of a Comedy Series for an episode of "The Office".

UP THE YANGTZE Wins Best Documentary at Canada's Genie Awards

Fresh off receiving two Cinema Eye Honors last Sunday (Outstanding Debut and Audience Choice), Yung Chang's UP THE YANGTZE last night won the Canadian Genie Award fir Best Documentary.  The ceremonies, held in Ottawa for the first time, were apparently marked by controversy - numerous entities criticized the conservative government's recent announcement that it would be cutting support for the CBC.

They Might Be Giants Win Second Grammy - Best Musical Album for Children

GIGANTIC Congrats to our friends John, John, Dan, Danny and Marty from They Might Be Giants on their Grammy Award this afternoon for Best Musical Album for Children for their most recent kids CD "Here Comes the 123s".

John Flansburgh and John Linnell previously won a Grammy in 2002 for the "Malcolm in the Middle" theme song, "Boss of Me".

The BAFTA for Best British Film Goes to MAN ON WIRE

This evening in London - in a bit of a surprise - MAN ON WIRE took the award for Best British Film at the BAFTA's, besting Oscar frontrunner SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, as well as HUNGER, IN BRUGES and (egads!) MAMMA MIA!.

The Guardian, which is liveblogging the event, described the reaction of the producer and director:

"Simon Chinn and James Marsh aren't prepared and I don't blame them."

In another somewhat-surprise, the Best Foreign Language Film prize went to the French film, I'VE LOVED YOU SO LONG, rather than Oscar favorite WALTZ WITH BASHIR.  (PERSEPOLIS, GOMORRAH and the Oscar-nominated THE BAADER MEINHOF COMPLEX were also nominated.)

UPDATE:  Here's the text of Marsh and Chinn's acceptance speech:

Marsh: Thank you so much, this is very unexpected.  I'm not even prepared for this so I need to thank all of the people who are actually in the film.  All the people who worked on the film.  And, most importantly, Phillipe Petit, who is not a special effect, he's not a superhero, he's a real flesh and blood man who walked between the Twin Towers.  Thank you, Phillipe, this is for you.  

Chinn:  I guess this proves that documentaries can touch people as powerfully as the best feature dramas.  I'd like to thank the film council, the BBC, Discovery Films.  I'd like to thank our production partners, Wall to Wall and Jonathan Hewes in particular, and I'd like to thank Phillipe as well for entrusting a couple eager Brits with his amazing story.  Thank you. 

Ari Folman Wins the WGA Award, Makes History

Continuing his string of honors, Ari Folman picked up the Documentary Screenplay Award from the Writers Guild of America for WALTZ WITH BASHIR, and in so doing becomes the first person to win both the WGA and DGA awards for Documentary. 

Last month, BASHIR received a Golden Globe and was named Best Picture of 2008 by the National Society of Film Critics.  It is nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar and is also up for a record-setting seven Cinema Eye Honors. 

MAN ON WIRE producer Simon Chinn picked up the Producers Guild award two weeks ago. 

BOOGIE MAN, CHICAGO 10, FUEL and GONZO: THE LIFE AND WORK OF DR. HUNTER S. THOMPSON were also nominated for the WGA award.

Ari Folman Wins the DGA Award for WALTZ WITH BASHIR

At the Directors Guild Awards tonight in Los Angeles, Ari Folman took top honors in the documentary category for his animated Isreali film WALTZ WITH BASHIR.  The film is nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar and is up for seven awards at the Cinema Eye Honors.  It previously tied with MAN ON WIRE for Best Documentary at the IDA Awards and was named Best Picture of the Year by the National Society of Film Critics.

BASHIR's victory at the DGA continues a trend of the DGA awarding films that were not nominated by the Academy for the Documentary Oscar, including recent winners GRIZZLY MAN and GHOSTS OF CITE SOLEIL.  In fact, the DGA and Academy winner has only matched once in the awards' history - and that was 1991, the first year for the DGA Documentary prize, when Barbara Kopple won both awards for her landmark AMERICAN DREAM.

While the Guild and the Academy are very rarely in sync when it comes to nonfiction, it's entirely different story in the narrative feature category, where the Guild winner almost always goes on to win the Oscar for Best Director.  Danny Boyle received the DGA Award for SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, further proof of that film's nearly unstoppable march to the Kodak Theatre.