International Truth Seekers
All five documentary feature nominees were made by filmmakers outside the U.S.
The Academy’s nonfiction branch whittled down a strong shortlist to five films vying for the documentary feature trophy: “20 Days in Mariupol,” “Bobi Wine: The People’s President,” “Four Daughters,” “The Eternal Memory,” and “To Kill a Tiger.” Notably, each director in the category is an international filmmaker, three are women, and only two films have distribution by a major streamer.
20 Days in Mariupol (PBS/FRONTLINE)
In February 2022, AP journalist Mystyslav Chernov began filming Russia’s invasion of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol. Chernov ended up recording more than 30 hours of footage, which depicted a maternity hospital being bombed, mass graves and people looting shops for food. Critically acclaimed as a strikingly immediate record of citizens under siege, the film premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, where it garnered an audience award. The doc’s early release and decorated run on the worldwide film festival circuit has helped keep the film in constant conversation. While this is the first Academy Award nomination for Chernov and the 178-year-old AP, the category is won more often than not by newbie filmmakers over veterans.
Bobi Wine: The People’s President (NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC)
The docu from Moses Bwayo and Christopher Sharp, which follows the attempt by musician Bobi Wine to topple the repressive regime of Ugandan president
Yoweri Museveni, has been on the festival circuit since it premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September 2022. “Bobi Wine” collected the top prize for best feature at the Intl. Documentary Assn. Awards in November, the only Oscar nominated film to receive a feature nomination this season. (The last two Oscar-winning documentaries — “Navalny” and “Summer of Soul” — garnered best feature IDA noms.) In addition to having a distributor with deep pockets — Natgeo is majority owned by Disney — the docu has brought worldwide awareness to Uganda’s repressive regime and has kept Wine alive and out of prison. Voters like men who pursue justice — think “Navalny.”
The Eternal Memory (MTV DOCUMENTARY FILMS)
“The Eternal Memory,” Chilean documentarian Alberdi’s follow-up to the Oscar-nominated “The Mole Agent,” tells the story of a Chilean couple whose lives are irrevocably impacted by an Alzheimer’s diagnosis. The docu took home the Sundance 2023 grand jury prize for world cinema documentary, and was also runner up for the Berlinale audience award. The film is one of two in the category to have a streamer behind it — in this case MTV
Documentary Films, part of Paramount Global. That and the fact that doc branch voters seem to be enamored with Alberdi, who received the coveted mid-career filmmaker award at DOC NYC, gives the film a leg up. The question is: Will the entire Academy vote on a timely political docu, or this intimate portrait about marriage and disease?
Four Daughters (KINO LORBER)
Not only did Ben Hania’s “Four Daughters” snag a competition slot at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, a rare feat for a documentary, it also won the fest’s L’oeil d’or (Golden Eye) for best documentary. The hybrid documentary, which weaves in narrative elements, tells the story of a Tunisian mother whose two elder daughters joined ISIS. While the director has received an Oscar nom in the past for “The Man Who Sold His Skin” (2020), that was for best international feature, rather than documentary. It’s unusual for a hybrid nonfiction film to make it to the final five given the docu branch voters’ purists tendencies; Academy voters overall could be put off by the fiction that is incorporated into a film that has been deemed nonfiction.
To Kill a Tiger (NATIONAL FILM BOARD OF CANADA)
Nisha Pahuja’s “To Kill a Tiger,” about a father’s pursuit of justice in rural India, was awarded the documentary prize at the 2023 Palm Springs Film Festival — an Oscar bellwether. Variety called the film “a heavy but necessary work about the legalese and cultural attitudes surrounding sexual violence in rural India.” While the doc doesn’t have distribution, Academy members Mindy Kaling and Dev Patel executive produced the film and are actively promoting it. Voters’ affinity for last year’s Oscar nominated South Asia docu “All That Breathes” makes “To Kill a Tiger” an underdog worth betting on.