Take Irene Cara, an Oscar winning song from Flashdance and the kids from Oscar winning doc He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin’ and you’ve got magic.

There are 4 more weeks of Oscar’s Docs Series 3. Tickets are still available.

The post Tonight at Oscar’s Docs…What a Feelin’! appeared first on documentary insider.

Tickets $5 or $3 students

Click for more info or to buy tickets.

I’ll miss the first night since I’ll be at IFP with Girls on the Wall. But after that you can find me there every Monday night!

The post My favorite thing is coming… appeared first on documentary insider.

8 Doc Shorts
Short-Listed for 2006 Oscars®

Beverly Hills, CA — The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced that the field of Documentary Short Subject entries has narrowed to eight films, from which three to five will earn Academy Award® nominations.

The eight films are listed below in alphabetical order:
“The Blood of Yingzhou District”
“Dear Talula”
“The Diary of Immaculée”
“Phoenix Dance”
“Recycled Life”
“Rehearsing a Dream”
“A Revolving Door”
“Two Hands”

Nominations for the 79th Academy Awards will be announced on Tuesday, January 23, 2007, at 5:30 a.m. PST in the Academyâ€s Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2006 will be presented on Sunday, February 25, 2007, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live by the ABC Television Network at 5 p.m. PST, beginning with a half-hour arrival segment.

# # #

©A.M.P.A.S.®
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
8949 Wilshire Boulevard Beverly Hills, CA 90211-1972
(310) 247-3000 | www.oscars.org | publicity@oscars.org

The post 8 Doc Shorts Short-Listed for 2006 Oscars appeared first on documentary insider.

I don’t feel changed.

But, I am so glad to be in documentary NOW! Now it is exciting, people have voices. Films are made with passion behind them. The early doc winners were about news and they served their purpose. It’s what audiences (and studios!) wanted.

By 1950 you start to see a little change, not only in topic, but feelings behind the films. And by 1959 when father and son team Dr. Bernhard Grzimek and Michael Grzimek made Serengeti Shall Not Die, the ’59 feature documentary winner, they did it with passion in their hearts. And really, for the first time, made an unbiased, powerful piece of art. Work that made a change. The film saved the African plains from building and put the Serengeti into the consciousness of the world.

The Academy will present Oscar’s Docs series II 1961-1978 next Fall. By the time we get to the 1974 winner Hearts and Minds (Peter Davis and Bert Schneider, Producers), we really will have gotten somewhere.

Looking at early documentary winners makes me very reflective and proud to be a part of a documentary community that is truly making a difference, changing how people look at things and challenging not just audiences, but ourselves by pushing the genre and creating more fascinating and thought provoking works.

The post Oscar’s Docs – 1941-1960 – a mini wrap up… appeared first on documentary insider.

Academyâ€s Oscarâ€s Docs series

The series started with 1941 the first year of the Oscar for documentary film. Docs had become en vogue due to the war and nearly every winning and nominated film from 1941 to 1948 was about the war from one countryâ€s perspective or another. I donâ€t consider myself a history buff and maybe if I were I could find a better context to put these films.

1949 it started to get a little more interesting, not just like watching newsreels but an actual story. And now with 1951-1954 under my belt I am well versed in the nature documentary and the Walt Disney nature documentary to boot.

Thus far it has been an interesting ride and due to the fluid definition of documentary over the years the series has included esoteric animation (Neighbours, 1952), films that are 100% reenacted (Benjy, 1951) and unbelievable bias and politically incorrectness (Design for Death, 1947). There are 3 more weeks to cover 1955-1960 and then Iâ€ll have seen the first twenty years of Academy Award winning documentaries. I have to “thank the Academy” for that.

The post 3. Oscar’s Docs – an overview thus far… appeared first on documentary insider.

Propaganda war films have never been my bag. Yet attending this Oscarâ€s Docs series has had me spending 4 Monday nights – long nights – watching documentaries, 4 or 5 at a time, about WWII. Watching the 1947 winner Design for Death got me thinking, whatâ€s the difference between propaganda and plain ole reenactment? Reenactment is better!! Reenactment is trying to be what actually happened. While propaganda is not historically accurate because it uses original material and takes it out of context. Design for Death, says the poster, shows “secret Jap films shown for the first time”. And thatâ€s just the start of the manipulated mess that won the Academy Award for Best Documentary feature in 1947. I know I said it twice, but it really needs to be said twice!

I understand that the doc category was created in 1941 and thatâ€s really what audiences wanted then, information on the war. But now, something about watching these films is draining. Itâ€s really too much to watch 4 in one sitting.

Tonight the series has fit in a panel on nature films. And…oh…am I looking forward to it.

The post 2. Oscar’s Docs 1943 – 1948 appeared first on documentary insider.

1941

1941 was the first year the Academy recognized the documentary with its own category for Oscar. Dutch born documentarian Joris Ivens wrote “I am so very glad that at last we are recognized by the Academy and that the documentary film has become one of the ‘decent†branches of the Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.” The Academy did, however, award a handful of documentaries during the first 14 years of Oscar, but the films were lumped into other categories, not their own.

With WWII on the rise doc filmmakers had their subject and were ready to shoot. There were 11 nominations for best documentary short subject in 1941. Only two of them were not about the war, Life of a Thoroughbred and Adventure in the Bronx. Churchillâ€s Island (22 mins), produced by the Canadian Film Board and narrated by Lorne Greene took home the first official documentary Oscar statuette. The awards took place at the Biltmore Bowl of the Biltmore Hotel on February 26, 1942, just two months after the attack on Pearl Harbor and Americaâ€s declaration of war.

After coining the term “documentary” and ushering in the doc movement in the UK, John Grierson (1898-1972) became the first commissioner of the Canadian Film Board. He defined documentary as, “the creative interpretation of reality,” and its purpose “to exploit the powers of natural observation, to build a picture of reality, to bring the cinema to its destiny as a social commentator, inspirator and art.” Churchillâ€s Island was one film among many produced by the CFB. Over the course of the war, 6.5 million feet of film were shot by 700 cameramen, 32 of whom were killed, 16 reported missing and 101 wounded.

1942

1942 brought 25 nominees and 4 winners to the Best Documentary category. Prelude to War (U.S.), Moscow Strikes Back (Russia), Kokoda Front Line! (Australia) and The Battle of Midway (U.S.), all 4, war movies.

The films all have the same feel. They were reporting the news, using newsreel footage, music with strategically placed swells, montages and artful animations. The film quality is good and also sometimes gritty giving the feeling that these scenes are taking place right now! Strangely enough, however, taking the films out of context and watching them as movies and not as accounts of a brutal war also works. Part of that is the film quality. As a person writing this in 2005 I can safely say that we are used to watching news that was shot on video and that this characteristic of film is generally placed on movies. I had to keep reminding myself that these were REAL events and not fictional stories. Itâ€s also important to note the overtly biased attitudes of the films themselves. Today people get all up in arms when a filmmaker blatantly uses bias as a way to further the story. But in the days of war everyone was on the same page, keep the bad guys out whether they were “Japs”, Nazis or Fascists.

Prelude to War (53 mins) was produced by US Army Special Services and directed by Lieutenant Colonel Frank Capra as part of the Why We Fight series. Prelude was released to the armed services on October 30 and made required viewing for all troops overseas. In order to secure theatrical release for the picture Capra submitted it to the Academy for consideration for Oscar. In May 1943, 250 prints were made available free of charge to theaters nationwide. The ad campaign suggested exhibitors had a moral obligation to present the film. “If a fallen soldier could speak,” it stated under the picture of a dead G.I., “heâ€d ask you to book ‘Prelude to Warâ€â€¦he gave a lifetime. Mister can you spare 55 minutes of screen time?” Brutal. Prelude is considered one of the most widely seen documentaries produced in the U.S. during wartime.

Moscow Strikes Back (55 mins) distributed by Artkino, produced by Nicholas Napoli and narrated by Edward G. Robinson details just how Russia repelled the German army in the winter of 1941 by acting as a single, cohesive entity made up of civilians, partisans and soldiers. The film is heartbreaking. “Soviet camera-men began to show something the world had not seen: captured Nazi soldiers, weary and disheveled, trudging through Russian snow,” as stated in Erik Barnouwâ€s book Documentary: A History of Non-Fiction Film.

Kokoda Front Line! (10 mins) distributed by the Australian News Information Bureau and hosted by official cameraman Damien Parer. The Japanese had invaded New Guinea and Australia was under direct threat of invasion for the first time. The film begins with a heartfelt introduction by Parer, “an experienced and qualified observer.” His presence seems a little hokey now – but to the 1940s eye he was the voice of truth and news. Sadly, he was unable to accept the award himself because he was killed on the front lines, shot down by a Japanese gunman while filming American Marines in action.

The Battle of Midway (18 mins) distributed by the U.S. Navy and 20th Century Fox, directed by Lieutenant Commander John Ford and narrated by Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, Donald Crisp and Irving Pichel. Shot in Technicolor The Battle of the Midway employs great photography and patriotic music to achieve a triumphant feel and tone. Ford makes common men heroic in this classic tale of the 4-day fight between the Japanese and United States at the island of Midway. After this battle the Americans and their Allies took the offensive in the Pacific.

People were making films about news and what affected them imminently. It was a serious job to make these movies as audiences of the time really accepted the content as truth in reporting. WWII provided the backdrop for the documentary genre and it would only continue to grow.

Next week read about 1943 and 1944.

Research compiled from notes by Ed Carter, Arnold Schwartzman, Chuck Wolfe, Chris Fedak, Kate McLoughlin and Charles Silver.

The post 1. Oscar’s Docs 1941-1942 appeared first on documentary insider.