All these wonderful things

An Award Season (Finally) Ends as INSIDE JOB Wins; Ferguson and Marrs Defend Banksy, Enter Oscar History

In just a few minutes it was over.  A solid plug for documentaries and an outstanding year of films by presenter (and documentary doyenne-wannabe) Oprah Winfrey, a quick montage of the five nominated features, the opening of an envelope, a strong political statement from a newly-minted Oscar winning director and a thank you to the documentary community from a just-crowned Oscar winning producer. 

And then it was done.

After months of speculation and the presentation of countless peer, festival and critics awards, the Oscar went to Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs for INSIDE JOB.

Ferguson took his Oscar and seized his moment: "Forgive me, but I must start by pointing out that three years after a horrible financial crisis caused by massive fraud, not a single financial executive has gone to jail and that's wrong."

In her speech, Marrs spoke of the larger documentary community: "Having only made two films, I still feel that Charles and I are newcomers to this community, but from the beginning we've been made to feel incredibly welcome and supported for which I'm immensely grateful."

Backstage, the filmmakers were asked by questioner about their fellow nominee, Banksy, who inspired a great deal of speculation prior to the ceremony over what he might do if his film, EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP, won the Oscar.  Asked whether all the Banksy talk distracted from documentary, Marrs spoke out in the artist's defense:

"I would never question the integrity of another filmmaker, and I appreciate the fact that there was a film that was fun and funny, and I don't think documentarians should necessarily feel obligated to make films about these really heavy subjects. Although, in some ways, I guess making a film about art is, but I appreciated there was one like that in the mix because I think documentarians should be able to make films about whatever they want."

Ferguson added, "I thought the Banksy film was lovely.  A beautiful film."

Our Oscar and Spirit Awards Predictions

With Los Angeles abuzz in pre-Oscar festivities, it seems that it's become time to weigh in on this year's awards and to offer a few predictions about who might go home with some hardware.

Saturday afternoon, amidst what is predicted to be a stormy and cold Spirit Awards under the tent in Santa Monica, it seems safe to say that the Documentary Feature award will go to either EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP or RESTREPO.  The history of the Spirit Awards is that, in the documentary category at least, exposure/box office potency = the win. Only twice in the ten years of the Best Documentary award has the winner not been a film with the highest box office take - last year was one of those when ANVIL! topped FOOD, INC.

[Check out our list of all of the Spirit Awards nominees and winners in the documentary categories here.]

With that said, it's hard to imagine that the FIND membership will go with MARWENCOL or SWEETGRASS, which had lower-profile theatrical releases, or to THUNDER SOUL, which is set to be released by Roadside Attractions this fall.

Just by tradition alone, you'd have to pick EXIT as the winner here.  It grossed about three times the amount that RESTREPO did, and it fits in with the pop culture themes that tend to win on Saturday (i.e. previous winners DOGTOWN AND Z-BOYS, SOME KIND OF MONSTER, ANVIL!).  A non-pop culture, vérite-style film, which, aside from a sprinkling of interviews with the subjects, RESTREPO is, hasn't won the Documentary award at the Spirits since 2000 (DARK DAYS).

Note: MARWENCOL and SWEETGRASS, along with SUMMER PASTURE, were nominated for the Spirit Awards' grant prize, the Truer Than Fiction Award, which recognizes upcoming nonfiction filmmakers (and which has been won in the past by Bill and Turner Ross (45365), Margaret Brown (THE ORDER OF MYTHS) and Ian Olds & Garrett Scott (OPERATION: DREAMLAND).  For the first time in the Spirit Awards history, this award (along with the other grant prizes for upcoming narrative filmmaker and producer) will not be announced during the Spirit Awards themselves - they were shifted to a brunch event that took place in January.  MARWENCOL was named as this year's winner.

So, if EXIT looks like a straight-away winner at the Spirit Awards, then the question is whether Banksy and Jaimie D'Cruz triumph on Sunday afternoon in the Kodak Theatre.

For Your Consideration: EXIT For the Win

With screenings of this year's Oscar nominated documentary features coming to a close and ballots about to be turned in, I took some time over the last few days to think about this year's nominated films and which film should stand as the film to represent 2010, which was, by any measure, a remarkable year in nonfiction filmmaking.

One thing that surprises is the fact that most of this year's nominees are newcomers to documentary (even if they've had great success in other fields).  Banksy is one of the world's best known street artists, Sebastian Junger is a noted author and journalist, Tim Hetherington is a respected cinematographer and Josh Fox has led a successful theater company in New York for more than a decade.  It is somewhat strange to realize that Lucy Walker, now with four documentary features under her belt, is the Grande Dame of the category, or that Charles Ferguson becomes that rarest of documentary creatures - Oscar nominated for his debut and his sophomore effort.

Some of these filmmakers I know quite well.  Some I've just met during the past year.  Some I may never meet and will only know through email exchanges.  And while personal relationships can complicate writing a piece like this, I felt that a year like 2010 required going on record.  So, here are my thoughts on the films that will forever stand as representative of last year, at least at the Academy, along with my pick - which if you've been paying close attention over the last six months (not that you should), probably won't come as much of a surprise.

Reactions from Oscar Nominees Tim Hetherington and Banksy

Just got off the phone with Oscar nominee Tim Hetherington, co-director of RESTREPO who confessed to not sleeping much last night.  He relayed that someone recently asked his co-director, Sebastian Junger, whether getting nominated for an Oscar was foremost in his mind when he was shooting in Afghanistan and Junger replied, "Well, actually the foremost thing in my head was not to get killed."

Hetherington said that the big question in the film getting or not getting the nomination was whether the film would continue to have an active life for another couple of months - and he expressed hope that the film might be able to play a part in the discussion over the US' Afghanistan policy.

"We wanted to make a film that didn't divide people along partisan lines.  We knew if we'd made a politcized film, it wouldn't have had the reaction it had.  Sebastian and I care deeply about what's happening in Afghanistan and we wanted to reach as many people as possible.  (It's important to remember that) we are at war.  This film is about something that's happening right now, in the present."

Meanwhile, EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP Director Banksy, who now can add Academy Award nominee to his CV, just issued a statement through his publicist:

"This is a big surprise. I don't agree with the concept of award ceremonies, but I'm prepared to make an exception for the ones I'm nominated for. The last time there was a naked man covered in gold paint in my house, it was me."

In December we did interviews with Banksy and with Hetherington & Junger.  We'll add more nominee reactions to this space as they come in.

And the nominees are...

Well, we went four for five in our predictions (we had a feeling that either INSIDE JOB or WAITING FOR 'SUPERMAN' would be a surprise omission, but we backed the wrong horse...). Back in November, we were also 4-for-5 (we didn't have RESTREPO or SUPERMAN on the list, but we did have INSIDE JOB). 

Lots of folks were guessing that it would be a year full of the biggest films of the year, but our usual formula of 3 box office successes, one international film and one issue film held true.

Here's who will vie for the final round and the big golden man:

For Best Documentary Feature:

EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP
Banksy and Jaimie D'Cruz

GASLAND
Josh Fox and Trish Adlesic

INSIDE JOB
Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs

RESTREPO
Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger

WASTE LAND
Lucy Walker and Angus Aynsley

The Day Before: Predicting This Year's Oscar Doc Feature Nods

Early tomorrow morning, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will unveil the five feature films that will stand as this year's Documentary Feature representatives on Oscar night.  We've been talking for months about what a great year this has been for documentary - and it was amazing last week to be able to celebrate that year at Cinema Eye - but for many folks, it's this list of five that will forever stand for the year in documentary 2010.

But who makes the list?

One thing that many Oscar watchers miss about this part of the Documentary Feature voting is that the process allows branch members to show their support, as well as their dislike, of each of the 15 films on the shortlist.  Voters have ranked all 15 films on a scale of 6-10, with 6 being the lowest.  If there's more than a couple voters (and it may not even take that many) who give that low score of "6" to a film, it's enough to remove it from contention.

And because the vote is cast in secret without a jury or committee process to allow for cajoling and persuasion, in theory at least, voters can feel safe scoring down a film without needing to justify it to the group.

But there's no telling whether the voters - nearly all of them documentary filmmakers themselves - will actually hand out those low grades.

That's what makes this year - with some films that provoke very strong reactions - particularly difficult to call. 

Since Oscar's final five has never been - in its history - culled from the top five money makers, it's highly unlikely that you will see a list of five drawn exclusively from the top hits: WAITING FOR 'SUPERMAN', INSIDE JOB, EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP, RESTREPO and THE TILLMAN STORY. 

Here on the blog, we look at history and note that it's likely that three of these top films will make the list - and we'd frankly be lying to you if we said with any assurity which three films it will be.

The Most Honored Documentary of 2010 is EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP

After a full year in which Laura Poitras' THE OATH and Jeff Malmberg's MARWENCOL dominated our Nonfiction Feature Honor Roll with a full slate of festival jury prizes and year-end documentary awards, the onslaught of 2010's various film critics honors have handed the mantle of most honored documentary of the year to Banksy's EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP.

EXIT now has a full 24 mentions on the Honor Roll - a combination of year-end documentary award nominations and critics prizes - which is 8 ahead of the 2nd place film, MARWENCOL and 10 ahead of Poitras' THE OATH and fellow Oscar shortlisted doc, Charles Ferguson's INSIDE JOB.

Three other Oscar shortlisted features - Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger's RESTREPO, Amir Bar-Lev's THE TILLMAN STORY and Davis Guggenheim's WAITING FOR 'SUPERMAN' have 12 mentions each. 

After being absent from the list for most of the year (the film played out of competition at Sundance and Berlin), EXIT sprinted to the top of the Honor Roll chart on the basis of a somewhat surprising critical consensus - surprising not on the merits but because critics have tended to award issue-based docs over more entertaining fare.  Even last year when ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL was making a strong year-end showing among some critics, in the end the awards tended to favor the eventual Oscar winner, Louie Psihoyos' THE COVE. 

Banksy (Yes, Banksy) on Thierry, EXIT Skepticism & Documentary Filmmaking as Punk

Note - The second in a series of interviews with the directors of some of our favorite nonfiction features of 2010...

Whenever the subject of EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP has come up in casual or not-so-casual conversation over the past year, a vigorous discussion has followed.  I've seen master filmmakers, newcomers, film critics and non-pros all engage in excited, lengthy dissections of the film - sometimes about what's real, what they suspect is not - often about the film's profound take on art and commerce.  In the end, no matter what point of view the individual holds, the conclusion seems to always be that it's a major work in the nonfiction canon.

One would be forgiven for not expecting all this when Sundance announced EXIT as a late addition to the 2010 festival.  The debut film by Banksy - the anonymous British artist who gained notoriety and fame for his often-politically charged work that would turn up in some very unusual places (inside museum galleries, on the West Bank wall that separates Israelis and Palestinians) - EXIT would leave the festival spurring numerous distribution offers and go out on its own, working with sales agent John Sloss and distributor Richard Abramowitz to bring the film to theatres in the spring.  And after a somewhat surprising (relief was more like it) inclusion on the Academy's Documentary Feature shortlist, the film finds itself smack in the middle of Best-of-the-Year conversations.  It's nominated for the Documentary prize at the Film Independent Spirit Awards and it's up for 6 awards at next months Cinema Eye Honors, including Outstanding Feature and Outstanding Debut, not to mention the numerous film critics prizes its been garnering (yesterday, it was announced as the Best Documentary and Best First Feature on indieWIRE's annual critics poll).

Over the past month, we've had the opportunity to spend some time with the team behind EXIT - producer Jaimie D'Cruz and editor Chris King - including hosting the duo at a screening here in Los Angeles at Cinefamily earlier this month.  In their presence, I witnessed numerous others trying to find out what Banksy thinks of this or that. 

I had my own questions and Banksy and team were kind enough to get me his answers (via email, of course)...

All these wonderful things: One thing I've heard repeatedly from members of your team was that, early on, you were alone in your conviction that Thierry could and should be the narrative focus of the film - long before his show in LA that concludes the movie.  What drew you to Thierry as a film character and, aside from the fact that he had a lot of archival material about street art at his fingertips, why did you think that he could sustain the film's narrative arc?
 
Banksy: Thierry’s entertainment potential wasn’t difficult to spot - he actually walks into doors and falls down stairs. It was like hanging out with Groucho Marx but with funnier facial hair. Thierry arrived at a point when my world was becoming infested with hipsters and heavy irony, so his exuberant man-child innocence was fun to be around. Maybe I convinced myself Thierry was a good subject just because I liked him. I’d be lying if I told you the first time I met him I thought ‘this man’s life will deliver a good narrative arc’.
 
From the outset there are problems with any movie about graffiti because all the good artists refuse to show their face on camera. I needed the film to be fronted by a personality the audience could engage with. The producer Robert Evans said that ‘vulnerability’ is the most important quality in a movie star and that’s a hard thing to portray if all your interviewees have masks over their faces.
 
ATWT: It's clear in the film that you rely on a team of people to create your artwork.  What, if anything, was different about the filmmaking process, and the work you did with that team - Jaimie and Chris and others?  And how did you know when you'd found the right collaborators?
 
B: I paint my own pictures but I get a lot of help building stuff and installing it. I have a great little team, but I tell you what - they all hate this fucking film. They don’t care if its effective, they feel very strongly that Mr Brainwash is undeserving of all the attention. Most street artists feel the same. This film has made me extremely unpopular in my community.

EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP and INSIDE JOB Have the Momentum After a Weekend of Critics Awards

With critics awards season officially in high gear, two Oscar shortlisted films are feeling some momentum today, while some critics groups pointedly chose films that weren't on the Academy's shortlist (for varying reasons).

Banksy's EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP and Charles Ferguson's INSIDE JOB picked up multiple mentions (some wins, some honorable mentions, some nominations) from the various critics groups.

EXIT enjoyed victories from the New York Film Critics Online and the Indiana Film Critics, while being named runner-up by the Los Angeles Film Critics and the Southeastern Film Critics.  It also snagged a Broadcast Film Critics nomination.  There's little question that EXIT is having the best awards season of any nonfiction film - in addition to its critics prizes it was nommed for 6 Cinema Eye Honors, the IDA's Feature Doc Prize and the Spirit Awards' doc prize.  It's the only film on the Academy shortlist to be nominated for more than one of the other big documentary awards.  And now it's enjoying the best run with film critics to date.

INSIDE JOB had been having a surprisingly quiet awards season up until today, when it won both the New York Film Critics and the Southeastern Film Critics.  Earlier in the weekend it picked up Runner-Up from the Boston Film Critics and also picked up a Broadcast Film Critics nomination.

While we're talking about the shortlist and awards - we should note that, while its unlikely to pick up any film critics mentions (due to its airing on HBO this summer), GASLAND had its own major achievement this weekend, when New York Governor David Paterson announced a temporary moratorium on natrual gas fracking.  It would be hard to argue that the governor's action (and the massive grassroots campaign that led to it) weren't spurred in large part by Josh Fox' shortlisted film.  And in the "timing is everything" department, note that GASLAND's DVD comes out tomorrow.

Meanwhile, note that both the LA Film Critics and the Boston Film Critics opted to give their prizes to films conspicuously not included on the Academy's Documentary Feature shortlist - Boston gave two prizes to Jeff Malmberg's MARWENCOL (which opted to forego the Academy push over costs required by the Oscar rules) and the Los Angeles Film Critics went with Lixin Fan's LAST TRAIN HOME.  Both of those films (along with EXIT) are vying for multiple awards, including Outstanding Feature at Cinema Eye.

Here's a recap of what happened this weekend and how it affected the shortlisted films:

A Week of Awards Confirms That It's a Wide Open Oscar Race

If anyone thought that the first week of year-end film awards was going to help settle on a frontrunner for the Documentary Feature Oscar, they were mistaken.

In fact, the scattershot results only confirmed that this year's race is the most wide-open contest in years.

First, the Gothams settled on shockingly-out-of-the-race THE OATH for their documentary prize winner.  Next, as they announced their nods, the Spirits bypassed heavyweights like INSIDE JOB and WAITING FOR 'SUPERMAN', settling instead on shortlisted titles like EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP and RESTREPO.

Then Thursday, the National Board of Review, which has a shockingly good record as an Oscar predictor in the past decade, handed its top docu prize to Davis Guggenheim's 'SUPERMAN' and annointed A FILM UNFINISHED, INSIDE JOB, JOAN RIVERS: A PIECE OF WORK, RESTREPO and THE TILLMAN STORY as runners-up. 

The next day, the Producers Guild named six nominees for their Documentary Award: CLIENT 9, EARTH MADE OF GLASS, INSIDE JOB, SMASH HIS CAMERA, THE TILLMAN STORY and 'SUPERMAN'.  Only Deborah Scranton's EARTH and Leon Gast's SMASH weren't on the Academy Shortlist.

Later that night, Lucy Walker's WASTE LAND recieved the most votes from the IDA membership and won that organization's top prize, besting EXIT.

But the next day, both WASTE LAND and EXIT lost out at the British Independent Film Awards - with the victory going to shortlisted doc ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE.

Then, over the weekend, the DC Film Critics became the first critics group to weigh in, naming their nominees on Saturday and their winners on Sunday.  The five nominees were all shortlisters: EXIT, INSIDE JOB, RESTREPO, TILLMAN and 'SUPERMAN' - and the winner was Banksy's EXIT.

Finally, at Sunday's European Film Awards, the Documentary prize went to Patricio Guzman's NOSTALGIA FOR THE LIGHT (the other two nominees were ARMADILLO and STEAM OF LIFE).

And as critics are now weighing in with their lists of top films (in addition to their awards), we should note that Sight and Sound's list of films of 2010 includes several documentaries, including THE ARBOR (#5), THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF NICOLAE CEAUSESCU and NOSTALGIA FOR THE LIST (tied at #8) and EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP (tied at #20).

New York Magazine's David Edelstein also weighed in, listing 4 docs in a top 11 for the year: CLIENT 9 and INSIDE JOB tied at #2, EXIT at #8 and MARWENCOL at #9.

The coming week is a bit quieter, but next weekend we get the Boston, Los Angeles and New York critics to weigh in one after the other.

So if you're tallying at home, here's how the week went for the Shortlisted films: