News

Exclusive: Black Box Diaries, the award-winning documentary that just made the Oscar shortlist, will debut on Paramount+ with Showtime in the U.S. next month.

Shiori Itō’s film, winner of the Human Rights Award at Cph:dox and three awards at the Zurich Film Festival among many other honors, will bow on the streaming platform January 7. Oscar nomination voting begins the next day – Wednesday, Jan. 8.

“Black Box Diaries follows director Ito’s courageous investigation of her own sexual assault in an improbable attempt to prosecute her high-profile offender,” notes a release. “Unfolding like a thriller and combining secret investigative recordings, vérité shooting and emotional first-person video, her quest becomes a landmark case in Japan, exposing the country’s desperately outdated judicial and societal systems.”

Shiori Itō (wearing scarf) surrounded by Japanese media after a press conference

The documentary marks Itō’s feature film directorial debut. “A journalist, writer and filmmaker...

We at Film Independent have always been proud of our producing lab fellows. They’ve gone on to make some big hits and some big careers. But that was all in the world of scripted.

“Producers are the backbone behind every great film and supporting their work in these turbulent times is all the more vital.” said Angela C. Lee, Director of Artist Development. “We couldn’t be more thrilled to expand our programming to include documentary Producers and welcome this incredibly talented and tenacious cohort of fiction and non-fiction Producers in this year’s Producing Labs.”

In its 24th year, the Producing Labs have a strong track record of pushing exciting talent and diverse (and award winning) stories. The Film Independent Producing Lab has supported films such as In the Summers produced by Daniel Tantalean which was awarded the 2024 Sundance Grand Jury Prize, The Inspection,produced by Chester Algernal Gordon,...

MTV Documentary Films is making its Oscar-nominated documentary The Eternal Memory available for free on YouTube through the rest of the month.

The film, winner of the Goya Award for Best Iberoamerican Film and the Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema Documentary at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival among many other awards, earned director Maite Alberdi the second Oscar nomination of her career. The Chilean filmmaker was nominated in 2021 for her documentary feature The Mole Agent.

“The Eternal Memory tells a profound and moving love story that balances vibrant individual and collective remembrance with the longevity of an unbreakable human bond,” notes a release about the film. “Augusto and Paulina have been together and in love for 25 years. Eight years ago, their lives were forever changed by Augusto’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis. As one of Chile’s most prominent cultural commentators and television presenters, Augusto is no stranger to building an archive of memory.

Exclusive: Film Independent on Wednesday named the filmmakers and projects selected for its 12th annual Documentary Lab, rolling out a list that includes Alina Simone & Kirstine Barfod (Black Snow), Chris Coats (Flamingo Camp), Sisa Bueno, Gabriela Díaz Arp (Matininó), Amanda Erickson (She Cried That Day) and Adina Luo (You Have the Floor).

The nonprofit behind the Independent Spirit Awards also announced Black Snow‘s Simone as the recipient of its latest Cayton-Goldrich Family Foundation Fellowship, an unrestricted $10,000 cash grant awarded to a Jewish filmmaker participating in one of its Artist Development Programs.

An intensive program providing creative feedback to filmmakers who are currently in post-production on feature-length docs, The Lab also advances their careers by introducing them to mentors, advisors and guest speakers who can advise on both the craft and business of documentary filmmaking. Chris Shellen (Mickey: The Story of a Mouse) and Ivete Lucas...

Rooftop Films has announced the recipients of their 2023 Filmmakers Fund grants. A total of 21 cash and service grants will be awarded to a variety of independent filmmakers to support the production of their next short or feature film. Four Rooftop Films Water Tower Feature Film cash grants will be exclusively awarded with support from the Laurence W. Levine Foundation.

Rooftop Filmmakers Fund grants are made accessible to Rooftop Films alumni directors who have had their work screened during the annual Sumer Series in New York City. This years grantees include a demographic of over 60% women, 30% people of color and 10% people a part of the LGBTQ+ community.

“We’re unbelievably excited about the projects we’ve had the privilege of helping to fund this year! Every single one of these filmmakers approach their subjects in ways that are wholly unique to their style and vision, and we can’t wait to see the finished works,...

Once considered a showcase committed to hybrid documentaries, the Cph:forum in Copenhagen has steadily transformed into a four-day event that presents a variety of topics, genres and artistic approaches from a diverse group of filmmakers. While the carefully curated market isn’t fazed by experimental approaches to the form, the industry event also champions traditional docu projects and provides a prominent platform for veteran, mid-career and newbie directors and producers.

This year, the financing and co-production event, taking place in the middle of the 20th edition of the Cph:dox documentary film festival, will feature 34 international projects selected from a record number 478 submissions. According to artistic director of Cph:dox Niklas Engstrom, the films selected to participate in the Forum didn’t need to meet a specific criteria, but each project is “important artistically, socially, politically, and culturally.”

Tereza Simikova, head of industry and training at Cph:dox, adds: “We don’t have...

Cph:forum, the financing and co-production event held during Cph:dox documentary film festival in Copenhagen, will introduce new projects by filmmakers such as Ljubomir Stefanov (“Honeyland”), Jessica Kingdon (“Ascension”), Finlay Pretsell (“Time Trial”), Ousmane Samassekou (“The Last Shelter”), Mila Turajlić (“The Other Side of Everything”), Tonislav Hristov (“The Good Postman”), Iryna Tsilyk (“The Earth Is Blue as an Orange”) and Brett Story (“The Hottest August”), among others.

Stefanov, who was nominated for an Oscar for “Honeyland,” will be pitching “House of Earth.” He teams with producer Maya E. Rudolph, who produced Emmy-nominated “The Andy Warhol Diaries,” and Sarah D’hanens. The film centers on transgender sex worker Pinky, who returns to her Roma community after 30 years, and finds two families in need of a matriarch. Torn between her biological kin and chosen queer family, Pinky attempts to build a future that feels like home.

Kingdon, who was Oscar nominated for “Ascension,” arrives with “Untitled Animal Project,...

Cph:dox also sets work-in-progress, Change co-production selections.

New feature documentaries from Honeyland director Ljubomir Stefanov and Ascension filmmaker Jessica Kingdon are among the 33 projects selected for Cph:Forum, the financing and co-production market of Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival.

Macedonian filmmaker Stefanov is presenting House of Earth, about a transgender sex worker who returns to her Roma community after 30 years on the run, only to be torn between her biological kin and her chosen queer family. The Macedonian-us co-production is produced by Maya E. Rudolph and Sarah D’hanens, and is looking for €405,000 funding to supplement its €45,000 in place from Louverture Films and private equity.

Oscar winning filmmakers Asif Kapadia (“Amy”) and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi (“Free Solo”), Oscar nominees Maite Alberdi (“The Mole Agent”) and Jessica Kingdon (“Ascension”), and Emmy nominee Jialing Zhang (“One Child Nation”) are among the lineup of speakers at Cph:conference, which runs during Cph:dox, Copenhagen’s documentary film festival.

The discussion program, which runs under the banner “Future at Our Fingertips,” also features Veronika Châtelain from Open Society Foundation and Anadil Hossain from Unhcr.

Cph:conference, which is curated in partnership with the training initiative Documentary Campus, has unveiled the full lineup of events (see here). The conference organizers said this year’s edition is aiming to “gather the international non-fiction community to collectively envision the future of the industry, discover and unlock the currently available resources, possible solutions, and transformative potential of the industry of tomorrow.”

The mornings are dedicated to the art of filmmaking and the creative challenges it brings.

2023 conference has the theme ‘Future At Our Fingertips’.

Diego Maradona director Asif Kapadia and The Mole Agent filmmaker Maite Alberdi are among the speakers for Cph:Conference, the industry talks programme of Cph:dox film festival in Copenhagen (March 15-26).

Running from March 20-24, this year’s Conference programme has the theme ‘Future At Our Fingertips’, taking the changed post-pandemic distribution and financing landscape as its launching point. It will centre on questions of inclusivity, freedom and sustainability of documentary as an art form.

UK director Kapadia, who won the Oscar for best documentary in 2016 for Amy, will participate in one of three ‘Mornings With Filmmakers’ sessions,...

I really enjoy the yearly ritual of delving into the depths of the year to reflect on my favourite watches for Directors Notes and have done so now for over a decade. When I went to write my top ten last year, I had just heard about the sudden death of my good friend and artistic mentor in Nottingham; Carol Crowe. I was just too sad to even open my laptop and we ran away to Whitby to see the new year in instead. I needed to feel cold air on my face and see comforting, familiar views.

2022 has been a year of gentle steps, finishing a new, deeply personal film – both shooting in the US and editing as well as starting another. My highlight was at legendary Rak Studios listening to Composer Tara Creme’s score being brought to life by a room full of skilled string players. I spontaneously burst into tears,...

Exclusive: Firelight Media has today named its latest cohort of Fellows for its flagship mentoring program, the Firelight Documentary Lab, which is now in its thirteenth year.

The participants and projects set for the 18-month program, taking place from 2022-2024, are Neelu Bhuman (Chiragu (Wing)), D.A. Bullock (Mister Backlash), Silvia Castaños & Estefania Contreras (Hummingbirds), Naveen Chaubal (Pinball), Paulina Davis (The Co-op: The Kids of Dorie Miller), Athena Jones (Sisters’ Keepers), Logan Rozos (What Will I Become?), Juliana Schatz Preston (Providencia), Jiayan “Jenny” Shi (Untitled Scientist Project), Tsanavi Spoonhunter (Holder of the Sky), Lendl Tellington (…that’s why He made momma), Reveca Torres (Untitled (Art and Disability Culture)) and Raven Two Feathers (Indigenous Genders).

This year’s set of Documentary Lab projects include stories of transgender and nonbinary protagonists in search of supportive communities; profiles of politicians and activists seeking to reform racially biased policies and practices in housing and policing...

Exclusive: The Sundance Institute and Sandbox Films have announced the 10 projects and filmmaking teams selected as the latest recipients of grants from the Sundance Institute | Sandbox Fund.

Related Story Sundance Film Festival 2023 To Show 25th Anniversary Edition Of 'Slam', Uncensored Director's Cut Of 'The Doom Generation' Related Story Sundance Institute Unveils 35 Documentary Projects To Receive 1.4M In Grants; 2022 Marks 20th Anniversary Of Documentary Film Program Related Story Sundance Unveils Ticketing Details, On-Sale Dates & Venues For 2023 Film Festival As Online Platform Launches

The fund offers grants to projects in stages ranging from development to post-production, along with engagement events and other opportunities for independent artists seeking to explore the intrinsic link between science and culture through innovative nonfiction storytelling. The 10 selected project teams will receive non-recoupable grants totaling 300,000, also claiming bespoke film support and joining Sundance Institute’s year-round artist community, with opportunities to connect with Sundance’s network of alumni and creative advisors,...

Manhattan’s Downtown Community Television Center celebrated the opening of the media arts center’s long-anticipated nonprofit, 67-seat movie theater, Firehouse: Dctv’s Cinema for Documentary Film, on Tuesday.

The only movie theater in New York City dedicated to screening documentaries, Firehouse is an official Academy Award-qualifying theater that will screen first-run films and curated programs.

On Sept. 23, Abigail Disney and Kathleen Hughes’ self-distributed “The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales” about the growing inequalities in America and better pay for Disneyland cast members, will be the inaugural docu to play at Firehouse cinema. The week-long screening will serve as the film’s qualifying run in New York. Disney is set to appear in person for opening weekend Q&As.

Abigail Disney, Jon Alpert and Kathleen Hughes attend Firehouse Dctv’s Cinema for Documentary Film ribbon-cutting ceremony. (Photo by Santiago Felipe/Getty Images)

At a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Tuesday, Disney said,...

The 18th Camden International Film Festival on Maine’s mid-coast – an increasingly important destination for documentary filmmakers – wrapped its in-person portion Sunday after announcing a handful of awards.

Day After…, directed by Kamar Ahmad Simon, won the festival’s Harrell Award, chosen from a group of “some of the most significant documentaries of the year.” The film is described as “A philosophical ballad along the rivers of Bangladesh, transporting the rich and poor, young and old, East and West in a century-old paddle steamer.”

“The jury was unanimous in its admiration for this film, in which an old riverboat seems to contain an entire society’s worth of dreamers and hustlers, politicians and radicals,” juror Eric Hynes said, noting that the documentary employs “both hybrid techniques and dogged observational power. This is a dazzling work of nonfiction.”

The jury awarded a special mention to Polaris, another film with a nautical theme.

The Oscar race came into sharper focus at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, with actors like Brendan Fraser and Michelle Yeoh cementing their lead contender status, and big-budget studio efforts like The Fablemans and Glass Onion premiering to raves.

The fall superfecta – Venice, Telluride, Toronto and New York – is the traditional launchpad for the prestige dramas that go on to vie for Best Picture. But for documentaries, it’s a different story.

Analyzing the last 10 years of Academy Award nominees for Best Documentary Feature, most premiered early in the eligibility year, typically at Sundance. But a fortunate few have launched as late as the fall, arriving with such noise and momentum that they rise to the top and earn one of the five slots among the year’s most prestigious nonfiction films.

Stanley Nelson’s Attica accomplished that last year, launching at TIFF in 2021. A second Oscar nominee,...

Dctv’s new documentary-dedicated theater, “Firehouse: Dctv’s Cinema for Documentary Film,” will open its doors Sept. 23. Located in Dctv’s historic Chinatown firehouse building in New York, the nonprofit theater will begin its opening week with an exclusive screening of Abigail Disney and Kathleen Hughes’ “The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales.”

“I’m so excited that my new documentary, ‘The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales,’ will kick off the opening of Dctv’s Firehouse Cinema,” Disney said in a statement. “I can’t wait to meet the first audiences who will be enjoying and shaping this vital new addition to New York City’s arthouse film scene.”

In addition to “The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales,” Firehouse will also run such documentaries as Reid Davenport’s “I Didn’t See You There” and Nina Menkes’ “Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power,” which premiere Sept. 30 and Oct. 21 respectively.

“The documentary form...

Six feature documentaries currently in post-production are selected.

Film Independent has revealed the 12 filmmakers and six projects selected for its 2022 Documentary Lab, with subjects including Baltimore police law, young women in Egypt and the legacy of a Lakota family.

The lab is designed for filmmakers currently in post-production on their feature-length documentary films and provides creative feedback from film professionals.

This year’s lead creative mentors are Chris Shellen, Jeff Malmberg and Anayansi Prado. Mentors and guest speakers include Oscar nominee Jessica Kingdon, Emmy winner Ali Johnes and Sundance Institute’s Carrie Lozano.

Projects supported by the Documentary Lab in...

Film Independent has set the filmmakers and projects for its 2022 Documentary Lab. The list includes Alissa Figueroa, Shalon Buskirk and Drew Swedberg, Nada Riyadh and Ayman El Amir (Land of Women), Kit Vincent and Ed Owles, Alix Blair, Lauren Kushner and Elise McCave (Untitled Helen Project) and Jonathan Olshefski and Elizabeth Day (Without Arrows).

The Lab is an intensive program that provides creative feedback to filmmakers currently in post on feature-length docs, advancing the careers of its Fellows by introducing them to professionals who can advise on both the craft and business of documentary filmmaking. Chris Shellen and Jeff Malmberg (Marwencol) and Anayansi Prado (Maid in America) will this year serve as its Lead Creative Mentors, with additional Lab Mentors and Guest Speakers to include Sara Dosa and Shane Boris (Fire of Love), Academy Award nominee...

The 2022 Oscar Winners and Nominees Winners & Nominees Actor In A Leading Role Winner Will Smith King Richard Nominees Javier Bardem Being the Ricardos Benedict Cumberbatch The Power of the Dog Andrew Garfield tick, tick…Boom! Denzel Washington The Tragedy of Macbeth Actor In A Supporting Role Winner Troy Kotsur Coda Nominees CIARÁN Hinds Belfast Jesse Plemons The Power of the Dog J.K. Simmons Being the Ricardos Kodi Smit-mcphee The Power of the Dog Actress In A Leading Role Winner Jessica Chastain The Eyes of Tammy Faye Nominees Olivia Colman The Lost Daughter PENÉLOPE Cruz Parallel Mothers Nicole Kidman Being the Ricardos Kristen Stewart Spencer Actress In A Supporting Role Winner Ariana Debose West Side Story Nominees Jessie Buckley The Lost Daughter Judi Dench Belfast Kirsten Dunst The Power of the Dog Aunjanue Ellis King Richard Animated Feature Film Winner Encanto Jared Bush, Byron Howard, Yvett Merino and Clark Spencer Nominees Flee Jonas Poher Rasmussen,...

Well… Oscar night 2022 was certainly one to remember. Many obituaries will have received their first lines last night, and there’s a few moments that will appear half way down for some of them.

But – here’s the good news: Sian Heder’s Coda won Best Picture, and genuine living legend Troy Kotsur took home the Best Supporting Actor award. It may have been a surprise for some, as Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog was hotly favoured. In the second piece of excellent news it was Campion herself who took home the Best Director gong, many would argue it’s long overdue.

Elsewhere Encanto, Will Smith, Jessica Chastain all took to the stage to collect their awards, and it’s pleasing to see another year when the awards were well spread out. It’s a sign of an industry in fine fettle, which is just as well given,...

No matter what your image of modern China, it’s nowhere near complete until you’ve seen it through New York-based, China-observing director Jessica Kingdon’s eyes. Working in the mold of photographers Lauren Greenfield (“Queen of Versailles”) and Edward Burtynsky (“Manufactured Landscapes”), the Tribeca Film Festival winner trains her camera on the impacts of China’s fast-exploding economy in the Oscar-nominated “Ascension,” leaving audiences with striking and frequently absurd scenes burned into their imaginations. Without contextualizing what we’re seeing, the hi-def collage asks us to make sense of a society even more stratified and excessive than our own.

Kingdon’s curiosity spans the class divide, from assembly lines where women prepare silicone sex dolls for demanding clients to private dining rooms where nouveau-riche elites learn how to eat a banana with fork and knife. The title, taken from a poem written by her great-grandfather Zheng Ze, refers not...

Chicago – Happy Oscar Day! The 94th Academy Awards takes place on March 27th, and Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com conducted two major interviews connected to nominees. Actor David Dastmalchian for “Dune” (Best Picture) and Director Jessica Kingdon for “Ascension” (Best Documentary).

It’s been an amazing film year for David Dastmalchian, who got his start in theater in Chicago. Besides portraying Piter De Vries from the House Harkonnen in “Dune,” he also was the Polka-Dot Man in James Gunn’s “The Suicide Squad.” He’d previously achieved blockbuster notoriety as the Russian Kurt, part of the “Antourage” in the Marvel Universe “Ant-Man” films, and has appeared in the DC series on the CW, “The Flash,” as the villain Abra-Kadabra.

David Dastmalchian as Piter in ‘Dune’ & Director Jessica Kingdon of ‘Ascension’

Photo credit: Warner Bros./MTV Documentary Films

“Ascension” is an impressionistic and cinematic portrait of China’s industrial supply chain...

Variety's Awards Circuit is home to the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars and Emmys ceremonies from film awards editor Clayton Davis. Following history, buzz, news, reviews and sources, the Oscar and Emmy predictions are updated regularly with the current year's list of contenders in all categories. Variety's Awards Circuit Prediction schedule consists of four phases, running all year long: Draft, Pre-Season, Regular Season and Post Season. The eligibility calendar and dates of awards will determine how long each phase lasts and is subject to change.

To see all the latest predictions, of all the categories, in one place, visit The Oscars Collective

Visit each category, per the individual awards show from The Oscars Hub

Revisit the prediction archive of the 2021 season The Archive

Link to television awards is atTHE Emmys Hub

2022 Oscars Predictions:

Best Documentary Feature

Updated: March 24, 2022

Awards Prediction Commentary:

The race for documentary feature has been Questlove...

Celebrate this year’s Oscars before, during and after the big night.

From Mindy Kaling to Beyoncé and Jay-Z, celerities and industry bosses will toast the nominees and winners of the 94th Academy Awards.

Pop that bubbly and shine those shoes because the fun is about to begin.

March 22

Emily’s List

9:30 a.m.

This year’s theme is “The Collective Power of Women.” Panelists include Gloria Calderón Kellett, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Robin Theade, U.S. Rep. Karen Bass. Moderated by Yvette Nicole Brown.

Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles

300 Doheny Dr., Beverly Hills

Oscar Week Events: Shorts

7 p.m.

Hosted by Academy Short Films and Feature Animation Branch Governor Jon Bloom.

Samuel Goldwyn Theater

8949 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills

March 23

South Asian Excellence in Film Party

5-8 p.m.

Hosts Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Mindy Kaling, Kumail Nanjiani, Anjula Acharia, Bela Bajaria, Maneesh K. Goyal and Shruti Ganguly toast “Flee,” “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom,...

Sense of place is a major theme in the Best Documentary category at this year’s Oscars. The five nominated movies span the globe from India to New York to China and Afghanistan, and the filmmakers involved with each movie joined TheWrap’s awards editor Steve Pond for an engaging conversation about making their movies.

Pond spoke with Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, director of “Summer of Soul;” Jessica Kingdon, director of “Ascension;” Stanley Nelson, director of “Attica;” Monica Hellström, producer of Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s “Flee;” and Sushmit Ghosh, director (with Rintu Thomas) of “Writing with Fire.” All are first time Oscar nominees.

Questlove, a frontman of The Roots, explained that he approached directing “Summer of Soul” with a little trepidation, but was energized by the chance to document the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, an often overlooked cultural moment.

“The thought that something so precious could be discarded, like an uneaten hot dog at a carnival,...

This weekend is a big one for Oscar watchers, with two awards ceremonies that often predict key categories. Sunday marks the biggest night of the year in British film, with the BAFTAs, whose winners often mirror those of the Oscars, taking place. But first, the biggest names in directing came out for the Directors Guild of America Awards. Judd Apatow returned to host the DGAs, which honor outstanding achievement in directing film, television, and commercials.

The feature film nominees at the DGAs were almost identical to the Best Director nominees at the Oscars, with winner Jane Campion (“The Power of the Dog”) competing against Paul Thomas Anderson (“Licorice Pizza”), Steven Spielberg (“West Side Story”), and Kenneth Branagh (“Belfast”. The only difference is that the DGAs swapped in Denis Villeneuve (“Dune”) for Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (“Drive My Car”).

On the television side, “Succession” and “Ted Lasso” have absolutely dominated the nominations. “Ted Lasso...

Jane Campion has been named the best feature-film director of 2021 by the Directors Guild of America for “The Power of the Dog.” She is the second consecutive female director to win after Chloe Zhao’s victory last year for “Nomadland,” and the third overall after Zhao and Kathryn Bigelow (“The Hurt Locker”), who won in 2010 and was also on hand for the ceremony at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

“I’m here because I care about women having voices,” Campion said in her acceptance speech. She had been the prohibitive favorite going into the DGA Awards, just as she is in the Best Director category at the Academy Awards — and the fact that she won even at the end of a marathon DGA ceremony during which one person after another had paid homage to her fellow nominee Steven Spielberg suggests that the rest of awards season will be smooth sailing for her.

The 74th Directors Guild of America Awards took place on Saturday, March 12 at 7:30 p.m. Pt with Judd Apatow hosting the in-person, non-televised ceremony. (Read our minute-by-minute live blog.) These kudos honored the best helmers of the year in movies and television, as voted on by more than 18,000 members of the directing guild. Scroll down for the 2022 DGA Awards winners list in three film and eight TV categories.

The all-important feature film category is one of the most telling bellwethers for the Best Director Oscar. The guild and the academy have only disagreed eight times over the past seven decades, including in 2019 when Sam Mendes (“1917”) won the DGA but Bong Joon Ho (“Parasite”) claimed the Oscar. Will this year’s winner follow the path of so many prior champs? Reminder: four of the guild’s nominees also reaped Oscar bids: Jane Campion (“The Power of the Dog”), Steven Spielberg...

Awards fans, mark your calendars for Saturday, March 12 as that’s when the 74th Directors Guild of America Awards will take place in Hollywood. Judd Apatow hosts the non-televised ceremony, which will honor the best in film and TV for the 2021 calendar year. According to Gold Derby’s DGA Awards predictions, some of the night’s big winners will include Jane Campion (“The Power of the Dog”) and Maggie Gyllenhaal (“The Lost Daughter”). Scroll down to see the 2022 Directors Guild Awards predictions listed in order of their racetrack odds, with projected winners in gold.

Our DGA Awards odds are based on the combined forecasts of 1,400 Gold Derby readers, including Experts we’ve polled from major media outlets, Editors who cover awards year-round for this website, Top 24 Users who did the best predicting last year’s winners, All-Star Users who had the best prediction scores over the last two years, and...

Nearly three decades after making her film acting debut at age 14, Maggie Gyllenhaal has now added her first feature writing and directing credits to her resume. Since its Venice International Film Festival premiere last September, her “The Lost Daughter” has won her numerous accolades, from the festival’s Golden Osella to the Independent Spirit Awards for Best Feature, Best Director and Best Screenplay. Gyllenhaal is also nominated for the Directors Guild of America’s First-Time Film Director award. According to our DGA Awards odds, she is widely expected to prevail and thereby become only the second woman to receive the honor.

This particular glass ceiling was broken by Alma Har’el, who took the 2020 prize for helming “Honey Boy.” Since the category’s establishment in 2015, 11 women and 25 men have vied for the award, making for a 1:2.3 ratio. The first female contender was inaugural nominee Marielle Heller. Aside from her and Har’el,...

As Jessica Kingdon made eight trips to China to shoot her first feature “Ascension,” a meditational look at China’s factory life and consumer society, she didn’t imagine a large audience for the result. “I thought it would be more niche,” she said in a recent interview with IndieWire over Zoom. “It’s not conventional. There are no characters. I didn’t expect so many people to find that enjoyable.”

But something clicked. MTV Documentary Films acquired the movie last summer and launched a successful awards campaign that resulted in “Ascension” getting nominated for the Best Documentary Oscar. Suddenly, Kingdon’s audacious immersion into this widely misunderstood side of China’s impact on the global economy became the seminal documentary on the subject for Western viewers.

That’s significant in part because as “Ascension” lingers in its settings, which range from a fabric shop that makes “Keep America Great...

The U.S. is not the only country with growing income inequality. The same is true of China, a phenomenon explored in the Oscar-nominated feature documentary Ascension, from MTV Documentary Films.

Jessica Kingdon’s film examines the vast tide of humanity at the bottom of the economic scale, flowing into cities to take menial factory jobs; a growing middle class with aspirations of wealth creation; and the super-rich, China’s 1 percent.

Contenders Film: The Nominees — Full Coverage

“The film is loosely structured by ascending the class ladder,” Kingdon explained during a panel discussion for Deadline’s Contenders Film: The Nominees event. “But a lot of it was also showing the middle class and showing leisure time. I wanted it to not just be about production, but also about how people spend their free time and what the different forms of that can look like and what everyone’s working for...

The 37th Annual International Documentary Association Awards, streamed online Friday night, capped a big week for nonfiction awards that also included the 15th Annual Cinema Eye Honors, presented live in New York on Wednesday.

Both awards groups honored Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s animated immigration saga “Flee” (Neon) with their top honors, while the Danish International Feature Oscar contender’s fellow Oscar nominee “Summer of Soul” (Searchlight/Hulu) notched three IDA awards: Rookie filmmaker Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson won for Best Director, Best Music Documentary, and Best Editing. Oscar nominee Jessica Kingdon’s “Ascension,” an observational look at the class structure in China, won three Cinema Eye Honors awards, the most of the evening, for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography, Original Score and Debut Feature.

Oscar nominee “Writing with Fire” nabbed the IDA’s Courage Under Fire Award for the India-based directing team Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh.

The IDA online ceremony, which was pre-recorded,...

The Oscar-nominated “Flee” took home the top prize at the 15th annual Cinema Eye Honors on Tuesday evening at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York.

Going into the evening, Neon and Participant Media’s “Flee” led the field with a total of seven nominations, while “Summer of Soul (…Or When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)” followed with six.

Filmmaker Cheryl Dunye also received the organization’s legacy award during the ceremony. The director was honored for her landmark 1996 independent feature “The Watermelon Woman.” After accepting the legacy award on stage, Dunye presented the category of audience choice prize.

See the full list of film winners and nominees below.

Outstanding Nonfiction Feature

“Ascension”

“Faya Dayi” (Directed and produced by Jessica Beshir)

“Flee” (Winner)

“The Rescue”

“Summer of Soul”

“The Velvet Underground”

Outstanding Direction

“Ascension”

“Faya Dayi”

“Flee”

“In the Same Breath”

“Procession” (Winner)

“Summer of Soul”

Outstanding...

Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s animated documentary “Flee” has been named the best nonfiction film of 2021 at the 15th annual Cinema Eye Honors, which were presented on Tuesday night in New York City. “The Rescue,” about the efforts to retrieve a Thai youth soccer team from a flooded cave, won the Audience Choice Prize.

The Neon release “Flee,” which uses animation to give anonymity to a young gay man who escaped Afghanistan as a teenager and made his way to Denmark, also won the award for graphic design and animation. It is nominated for Oscars in the documentary, animated-feature and international-feature categories.

Robert Greene won the directing award for “Procession,” while Matthew Heineman, Jenna Millman and Leslie Norville took the producing prize for “The First Wave.”

Jessica Kingdon’s “Ascension” won the most Cinema Eye awards, three, taking the prizes for debut feature, cinematography and score.

Other winners included “Summer of Soul...

Independent film supporter Rooftop Films announced the 2022 Filmmaker Fund winners February 28, exclusively on IndieWire.

The prestigious Water Tower Feature Film Cash Grant was awarded to “The 40-Year-Old Version” writer-director-producer-star Radha Blank, for her upcoming untitled dark dramedy.

Environmental director Eleanor Mortimer also won a Water Tower grant for an untitled deep sea taxonomy documentary, which “follows biologists through the intricate process of discovering deep-sea species as they piece together the unknown ecosystems of the largest biome on the planet.”

The $15,000 grants are made possible by generous support from the Laurence W. Levine Foundation.

The Rooftop Filmmakers Fund grants are available to Rooftop Films alumni directors who have previously had their work screened during the annual Summer Series in New York City. Blank screened her debut feature, “The Forty-Year-Old Version,” with Rooftop Films in 2020 at the Queens Drive-In. Mortimer screened her award-winning short film “Territory” at Rooftop Films in 2016.

This year,...

This year’s documentary Academy Award feature race is historical on many fronts. Four of the five nominated films were directed by people of color; Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s “Flee” made history by scoring three Oscar nominations: not only the doc feature category but also in the animated feature and international feature categories; Sushmit Ghosh and Rintu Thomas’ “Writing With Fire” became the first feature doc from India to earn a nom in the race; and four of the six nominated helmers are first-time feature docu directors.

But perhaps the most intriguing aspect of this year’s nonfiction feature Oscar race is the dominance of nascent doc distributors and production units.

Paramount Plus, Showtime Documentary Films and Music Box Films each received their inaugural Oscar nomination in the documentary feature category Feb. 8 for: Jessica Kingdon’s “Ascension” (MTV Documentary Films/Paramount Plus), Stanley Nelson’s “Attica” (Showtime Documentary Films) and...

My Old School Photo: Courtesy of Sundance Institute St Andrews has a new film festival - Sands: International Film Festival of St Andrews will have its inaugural edition from March 25 to 27.

The festival, which will take place at the town's Byre Theatre, will feature nine fiction and non-fiction films, including a mystery film which has yet to be announced.

The theme of this year's festival is Beginnings, with fiction features including debut films, including Blerta Basholi's Hive, starring Ylka Gashi, and Amalia Ulman's El Planeta.

Homegrown talent will include Leith-based filmmaking duo, Will Hewitt and Austen McCowan, who will present Long Live My Happy Head, a documentary long-distance love story about comic books and cancer and Jono McLeod's schoolboy imposter tale My Old School, which recently screened at Sundance and will also play at Glasgow Film Festival.

Other notable inclusions are Jessica Kingdon's Oscar-nominated documentary Ascension, which...

The first ever Sands: International Film Festival, set to be held in Scotland’s St Andrews, has revealed its line-up.

Running March 25-27, the program will consist of nine fiction and non-fiction features, including a mystery film not yet announced.

On the list is documentary Long Live My Happy Head, from Leith-based filmmaking duo Will Hewitt and Austen McCowan, which is a love story about comic books and caner that follows a long-distance couple as they navigate a Covid lockdown. The film will premiere at this year’s BFI Flare festival next month.

Screening in St Andrews having premiered recently in Sundance is Jono McLeod’s My Old School, a documentary-animation hybrid that unravels a Scottish scandal.

Arriving from Sundance’s 2021 edition will be Blerta Basholli’s feature debut Hive, Amalia Ulman’s El Planeta, and Christopher Makoto Yogi’s I Was a Simple Man.

A pair of titles will...

We can confidently predict a documentary is forthcoming on ‘90s TV psychic Miss Cleo.

Nonfiction entertainment studio Xtr and production company Majority announced they are in production on a film about the famed tarot card reader, who became the centerpiece of a billion-dollar fraud investigation. Award-winning filmmaker Senain Kheshgi is directing the documentary about a woman who became a ubiquitous television presence in ads offering to tell people’s fortunes through a pay-per-call number.

Miss Cleo purported to be a Jamaican soothsayer, but the person under the turban in fact was Los Angeles native Youree Dell Harris, a sometime actress and playwright hired to embody the gifted psychic.

“Claiming to be a shaman from Jamaica, Miss Cleo’s charisma and famous imperatives enabled the Psychic Readers Network, a pay-per-call service, to charge callers seeking answers over $1 billion for advice,” Xtr noted. “But in 2002 it all came crashing down when the...

Exclusive: Filmmaker Jessica Kingdon, who recently earned her first Oscar nomination for Ascension, has signed with Anonymous Content for management.

Kingdon directed and produced the Best Documentary contender, which plunges into universal paradoxes of economic progress, as it explores the aspiration that drives today’s People’s Republic of China.

The film made its world premiere at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival, where it won Best Documentary Feature, and was released by MTV Documentary Films in October. In recent months, it has also been nominated for six Critics’ Choice Awards, five Cinema Eye Honors, an IDA award, a DGA Award and an Independent Spirit Award.

Kingdon, who was named to Doc NYC’s “40 Under 40” list in 2020, has previously directed shorts including Routine Island and Commodity City, bringing the latter award winner to more than 50 festivals. She also co-directed the 2020 short It’s Coming! and has served on the producing teams for...

Every January, the Sundance Film Festival launches a slew of documentary Oscar contenders, and 2021 was no exception. While notable recent examples of fall openers winning Oscars include “Citizenfour” and “Free Solo” — and last year’s Netflix winner “My Octopus Teacher” played no festivals at all — most eventual Oscar nominees got their initial boost at Sundance and became must-sees for the expanding list of increasingly international documentary branch voters.

Emerging strong from Sundance 2021 was Danish filmmaker Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s innovative animated documentary “Flee,” which scored rave reviews and the Grand Jury Prize. This moving story of a refugee survivor reveals the identity-crushing dangers and humiliations of an immigrant trying to find sanctuary in a harsh world. Neon successfully mounted an Oscar campaign in three categories: Animation, Documentary, and International Feature Film, a first for any Oscar contender.

“Flee” landed an early Gotham Awards nomination and has assembled a mighty collection of awards and nominations,...

Every January, the Sundance Film Festival launches a slew of documentary Oscar contenders, and 2021 was no exception. While notable recent examples of fall openers winning Oscars include “Citizenfour” and “Free Solo” — and last year’s Netflix winner “My Octopus Teacher” played no festivals at all — most eventual Oscar nominees got their initial boost at Sundance and became must-sees for the expanding list of increasingly international documentary branch voters.

Emerging strong from Sundance 2021 was Danish filmmaker Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s innovative animated documentary “Flee,” which scored rave reviews and the Grand Jury Prize. This moving story of a refugee survivor reveals the identity-crushing dangers and humiliations of an immigrant trying to find sanctuary in a harsh world. Neon successfully mounted an Oscar campaign in three categories: Animation, Documentary, and International Feature Film, a first for any Oscar contender.

“Flee” landed an early Gotham Awards nomination and has assembled a mighty collection of awards and nominations,...

Exclusive: Xtr, the non-fiction studio behind projects such as Darren Aronofsky co-produced doc The Territory and Apple’s They Call Me Magic, is bolstering its C-suite.

The company has hired Abazar Khayami as its Head of Studio, where he will build out its production services and oversee the current and upcoming slate of feature documentaries including all development, production and execution.

He joins from mobile live video shopping company Ntwrk, where he was Head of Content and built and established the company’s content strategy, working with the likes of Billie Eilish and Juice Wrld. Before that, he was an exec producer at Spotify, where he worked on its video content strategy and development of its podcast division. He also spent five years at Vice Media, where he produced across Vice’s feature film studios and news departments, including projects with President Barack Obama, Spike Jonze, Jimmy Chin and Jonas Akerlund.

It’s happening.

The expected Oscar showdown between Summer of Soul and Flee became a reality today with the announcement of the nominees for Best Documentary Feature. Between them, Summer of Soul and Flee have claimed most of the pre-Oscar documentary awards and at Sundance last year they each won Grand Jury prizes – Flee in the international doc category and Summer of Soul for U.S. documentary.

Flee scored an unprecedented trifecta today – claiming nominations not only for documentary feature, but for Best Animated Film and Best International Film as well.

In the documentary feature race, Flee and Summer of Soul are joined by Ascension – earning the first Academy Award nomination in that category for MTV Documentary Films; Attica – which handed Showtime its first Oscar nod for documentary feature, and Writing With Fire, the first documentary feature from India to earn an Oscar nomination.

For the first time in its nearly hundred-year history, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has nominated the same female filmmaker for the Best Director honors for a second time. Jane Campion, who was previously nominated in the category for 1993’s “The Piano”, picked up a record-breaking second Oscar nom for her work on awards season favorite “The Power of the Dog.”

Campion, long viewed as the frontrunner in this category after picking up a bevy of awards already this season, was also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. Campion was also nominated for Best Picture as a producer of “The Power of the Dog.”

Campion will face off against Kenneth Branagh, Ryuske Hamaguchi, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Steven Spielberg in the stacked category.

In the Academy Awards’ 94-year history, only seven women have ever been nominated for Best Director alongside Campion: Lina Wertmüller (1976′s “Seven Beauties”), Sofia Coppola...

It’s that time again. Oscars noms!

The 2022 Oscar nominations are currently underway and we’ll be updating this post with all of the nominees as they come in. Will The Power of the Dog run riot this year, or will Denis Villenueve’s massive adaptation of Dune rule. Or will Don’t Look Up surprise us? Let’s find out.

Soctt Davis and Linda Marric are currently watching the nominations come in live – watch along with them for all the fun of the fair.

Here is the complete list of nominations for the 2022 Oscars.

Actor In A Leading Role Nominees Javier Bardem Being the Ricardos Benedict Cumberbatch The Power of the Dog Andrew Garfield tick, tick…Boom! Will Smith King Richard Denzel Washington The Tragedy of Macbeth Actor In A Supporting Role Nominees CIARÁN Hinds Belfast Troy Kotsur Coda Jesse Plemons The Power of the Dog J.K. Simmons Being...

In just a few days the Winter Olympic Games begin in Beijing, a massive event China will use to present an idealized image of itself to the world.

For a truer picture of China, in all its complexities and contradictions, ignore the Olympic pageantry and check out the documentary Ascension. The Oscar-shortlisted film, directed by Jessica Kingdon, creates a nuanced portrait of contemporary China, with emphasis on its increasingly stratified class system.

Ascension begins with aspiring workers pouring into cities in search of opportunity.

“A lot of it is migrant laborers,” Kingdon notes, “people from the countryside coming in.”

There are plenty of jobs, for those who don’t mind menial labor at less than munificent wages. Loudspeakers tout the advantages of signing up for one employer over another.

“Now recruiting, jobs at a foreign company,” one announcement says. “Factories and dorms with air conditioning. Standard uniform is required. Seated work available.

Encanto, Raya And The Last Dragon, The Mitchells vs. The Machines among animated feature nominees.

The Producers Guild of America (PGA) has announced its feature film land animated feature nominees with The Power Of The Dog, Dune, Belfast all in the running.

Netflix films led the way on three nods in the feature category for The Power Of The Dog, Don’t Look Up and tick, tick…Boom, while Amazon Studios’ Being The Riccardos was the surprise addition.The PGA nominations are a strong bellwether of a best picture Oscar nomination.

However while Spider-Man: No Way Home and The Tragedy Of Macbeth...