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.

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.

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:

As Critics Prepare to Weigh in, THE OATH and MARWENCOL Still Lead Honor Roll

Think of it as a different kind of shortlist. 

The Academy weighed in their list of 15 films that will move forward in the Oscar race.  Some of those titles have done really well in awards and nominations leading up to the Granddaddy of them all while others haven't made a blip on the radar until now.

On our annual Nonfiction Feature Honor Roll, we usually find that things really begin to coallesce as the year ends.  Thus far we've heard from festival juries & audiences, and we've got nominees for each of the year's other big nonfiction awards (Spirits, Cinema Eye, IDA & Gothams).Starting today, with the National Board of Review weighing in on the year's best films, we'll start hearing from critics groups and then the various guilds.

But if we were to take the information we have to date - which 15 films would make the Honor Roll shortlist?  [We'll give you a hint - only 6 of the 15 are on the Academy's shortlist.]

EXIT Again! Spirits Go for Banksy, RESTREPO, THUNDER SOUL & Double Nods for MARWENCOL and SWEETGRASS

The 2011 Film Independent Spirit Awards announced their nominations for February's awards earlier this morning in West Hollywood and once again, Banksy's EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP finds itself amongst the nominees.  Joining EXIT are Academy shortlister RESTREPO, audience favorite THUNDER SOUL as well as Jeff Malmberg's MARWENCOL and Ilisa Barbash & Lucien Castaing-Taylor SWEETGRASS, both of which were also nominated for the Truer Than Fiction grant prize.

The nod for EXIT comes after some confusion of whether the film would even be eligible for the Spirit Awards, which mandates an American provenance for its Documentary Feature nominees.  Even those on the EXIT team initially thought the film would not qualify, but after consideration of the Spirit Award rules - which allows films financed and filmed in America (even if its makers are not US-based) - the film was deemed eligible by Film Independent.

EXIT has now been nominated for three of the 5 major documentary awards (they were reportedly not eligible for the Gothams) - the film will vie Friday for the IDA prize for Best Documentary and it is nominated for six awards at January's Cinema Eye Honors.  The film was shortlisted for the Oscar earlier this month.

The Documentary Feature nomination for Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington's RESTREPO marks renewed momentum for that film, which also finds itself in the Oscar hunt (and has two Cinema Eye nominations).  It's the first year-end recognition for Mark Landsman's fest-favorite THUNDER SOUL, which will be distributed by Roadside Attractions next spring.

Artists, Activists and The Enigma: Seven of 2010's Essential Nonfiction Features

No one is going to argue that this has been an extraordinary year for nonfiction film.

Film blogger Scott Feinberg has even gone so far as to declare 2010 "The Year of the Documentary" - "the strongest - or, at the very least, the deepest - year yet in the history of documentary filmmaking".

The other week I had a conversation with someone who I frequently discuss the various politics and maneauverings of the Oscar race for Best Documentary and we agreed that this year it was entirely possible to come up with three completely different lists of five nominees - and that each list would be not just acceptable but pretty sterling.

But let's take Oscar (and Cinema Eye and IDA and Spirits and Gothams and critics prizes) out of the equation for a little while...

I actually meant to write this post back in June, when I'd already seen so many tremendous films - by newcomers and veterans alike.  But I put it off because I had so many other films that I hadn't seen yet - and I still have not seen a number of the year's most talked about films (INSIDE JOB, CATFISH, TILLMAN STORY, CLIENT 9, LAST TRAIN HOME and ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE).

But - as evidenced by this intro - talking about these films as we go into October changes the conversation from the stuff I loved in early 2010 to the stuff that should be considered going into awards season.  There's little to do about that other than to plunge forward.

A final caveat - just picking these seven films from the list of great and near-great stuff I saw in 2010 was a challenge in itself.  I could easily include RESTREPO, BUDRUS, MY PERESTROIKA, SPACE TOURISTS and a handful of others.

But thus far, these are the films that have settled in with me for the long haul and these are the films that have made my documentary viewing in 2010 so exceptional:

Perhaps my favorite film of 2010 thus far is Banksy’s EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP – a skillful, note-perfect dissection of art world hype and the often thorny creative process. 

The Horse Race: Oscar Docs - Who's In, Who's Out, Who Might Make the Shortlist

With last week's Oscar qualifying deadline for documentary features, several awards prognosticators have been weighing in with their thoughts on this year's "Doc Race Spectacular": who will be nominated and who will take home the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.

Predicting these things at this point is admittedly a bit wonky.  First we have to see who even gets shortlisted - a tricky prospect at best - and from there, it's still all about the shortlist screenings, the internal jockeying and just who shows up to watch all 15 of the films.

For instance, last year at this time, BURMA VJ, THE COVE and FOOD INC. all looked like relatively sure nominees.  But no one had seen the DANIEL ELLSBERG film and no one could have predicted WHICH WAY HOME would make it all the way to the Kodak Theatre.

The ELLSBERG film, in particular, premiered late (at Toronto) and proceeded to gain speed throughout the process - as older, liberal Academy members, who not-so-coincidently make up the majority of the viewer/voters, rallied around the baby boomer, anti-establishment hero.

So predicting the Doc Feature contest in early September is less about who will get nominated than it is answering the question of who will get shortlisted.  And as we've seen many times in the past several years, getting shortlisted is no certainty - even for films considered to be shoo-ins for a nod.

And this year might bring more complications as so many of today's best documentary filmmakers (and the ones with the most open ideas about what documentary can be - think back to late-80's discussions about "recreations") are actually in the running.  And by "in the running", we mean that they are ineligible from participating in the voting that determines this year's shortlist.  So someone like Alex Gibney, who was on the IDA jury that awarded ANVIL last year, can't vote.  Neither can Laura Poitras, Rachel Grady, Heidi Ewing and a handful of other young guns.

Many Oscar prognosticators seem to be hanging their hats on some of the high profile titles rolling out of the fall festivals, but we hear that only some of the big Toronto titles are trying to qualify this year.  A commenter below notes that Cannes sensation ARMADILLO and Werner Herzog's CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS are both on the Laemmle Theatre schedule for later this month, but you can  probably strike Wiseman's BOXING GYM, Ondi Timoner's buzzy and controversial COOL IT, Gala screening THE PROMISE: THE MAKING OF DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN and Errol Morris' TABLOID from this year's contenders. [Note that many recent Oscar nominees that premiered at Toronto - Herzog's ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD and last year's FOOD, INC. among them - waited for the next eligibility year before qualifying.] [ed. note - the above paragraph has been edited to reflect new information.]

2010 Film Fests (Part Two): Taking Another Look at Hot Docs, Sarasota and LAFF

Yesterday, we wrote about two of our top film festivals for documentaries that we traveled to for the first time in 2010.

Of course, traveling to fests isn’t just about the new discoveries.  Our visits this year to several other top festivals re-ignited our thinking on their top status.

At #4, Hot Docs is such an obvious and easy choice that it might be hard to be impressed (this year was our third trip in a row).  But something about returning to Toronto in the spring once again reminds one of just why the festival works so well.  One can’t help but be wowed by the programming - a truly thoughtful selection of international titles selected by Sean Farnel - and the way in which the festival is constantly trying to rethink the long-tired panel templates. 

This year, we were also struck by the ease of seeing both films and a global coterie of docu heavyweights.  This latter point might be our own process - for some reason Toronto is a city that took us a long while to find our legs in - and maybe this is the year that everything seemed to click.  But attending Hot Docs this year felt somehow cozy and, it goes without saying, Toronto's docu-loving crowds just cannot be beat.

Sarasota (our #20), on the other hand, might be easier to overlook – but overlooking Sarasota would be a huge mistake.  Sarasota is, in our minds at least, a kind of perfect festival: a terrific and nearly completest look at the best films of Sundance and SXSW (the latter selected by Sarasota prior to their potential breakouts in Austin) as well as a handful that either premiered earlier or had been neglected by the bigger “name” festivals that preceded it.

As is the case with many of our favorite festivals, there are travel issues (and hotels near the main festival venues are few and far between – most folks were lodged in airport hotels) and there’s going to be some considerable walking involved (unless you get smart and ride some of the free bikes the festival secured), but Sarasota remains one of the big American “experience” festivals, the kind of place you tell stories about months and years later: like when a group of (nameless) documentary filmmakers feared they might have left another (nameless) documentary filmmaker to drown in the Gulf of Mexico at 2 AM; or when the bar of the (nameless) resort hotel opened back up after closing at 1 AM when the owner realized that several (nameless) indie film stars were boozing in the lobby with hula hoopers and drag queens; or when Patti Smith belted out “Gloria” five feet in front of this (not nameless) filmmaker in a small restaurant bar.

Friday Night Flop: Downtown Spirit Awards Lose Their Luster and Speed Through the True Indies

Going into this year's Spirit Awards, I was actually excited to see what the change to Friday night (from Saturday afternoon) and Downtown Los Angeles (from the beach in Santa Monica) would bring.  Unlike some who were trapped in Friday afternoon traffic, I only live 15 minutes from the LA Live venue, so it was a brisk trip via side streets to this year's awards.

But it turned out that the biggest change (and the one most detrimental) was replacing long time Spirit Awards Executive Producer Diana Zahn-Storey with a cookie-cutter production team from dick clark productions, who apparently thought that the Spirit Awards = any other awards show + cursing.  Gone was the irreverent, sometimes homemade charm that makes the event so enjoyable.  Those funny song spoofs that lampoon the Best Feature nominees?  Replaced by a lackluster Jeff Bridges performance and yet another congratulatory lap around the track for Anvil.  As much as I love Anvil and ANVIL!, the set by the band just before the presentation of the Best Documentary award felt really wrong - and not just because of the ties (not mentioned) between Film Independent and ANVIL! producer Rebecca Yeldham. 

Host Eddie Izzard was a true bomb, which was especially disappointing given the amount of enthusiasm for him prior to the event, and the layout for the show was awful, doing him no favors.  On the beach the tent is laid out sideways, with the stage at the 50 yard line and tables no more than 10 or 12 rows deep; downtown the stage was at one end of the field, with many indie stalwarts stuck seemingly blocks away, watching on the large overhead monitors.

But worst of all, the one truly bullshit call of the night was to rush through the Film Independent grant recipients.  Instead of showing clips from the nominated films by these up-and-comers and getting to walk to the stage like the other winners, grant nominees were huddled backstage and sent out once the winner was announced.  Since grant nominees had been told that they needed to be placed on opposite sides of the room so that camera crews could capture their reactions, one can only assume that the decision was made during the show dut to the production running behind.  In any case, Bill Ross and Turner Ross, the Truer Than Fiction honorees for 45365 took to the stage and delivered a gobsmacked acceptance, even though presenter Matt Dillon never named the film for which they won.  

When Film Independent does their morning after assessment of this year's awards, they will likely hear that the downtown setting and the Friday night time slot were missteps.  But unless they bring in a new Executive Producer and give respect to the true indies in their midst, the change of time and setting will be the least of their problems.

Update: More pans from Anne Thompson ("I had a miserable time"), Shawn Levy (watching and cringing from home), Jeffrey Wells (wondering why the director didn't give the audience an establishing shot of the new venue).  Roger Ebert is more charitable: it "had its moments".  The indieWIRE team liveblogged and recaps the winners.  The high point of the night?  Dusty Smith's live tweeting at @spiritawards.