Innholdsfortegnelse for Award Special 42A, December 9, 2021 i The Hollywood Reporter

A funny thing happened over the past decade in the short subject documentary space: It became competitive. Where before a small number of players dominated the category, now it is extraordinarily diverse, as filmmakers, streaming services, TV channels and traditional media companies vie to get their projects in front of viewers and garner awards glory. “The short documentary race has sort of become a different thing than it was 10 years ago, when HBO was really the biggest player. And now everyone sees it as an opportunity,” says Christine Kecher, the senior commissioning editor for Op-Docs at The New York Times. “HBO was sort of the 500-pound gorilla; they won every year, and they were the only people that would campaign for a shortform Oscar,” adds Kathleen Lingo, editorial director…

Gravitas Ventures’ Finding Kendrick Johnson, which premieres on Starz on Dec. 27 following an Oscar-qualifying theatrical run, reopens the investigation into the mysterious death of African American teenager Kendrick Johnson, who was found in a vertically rolled-up gym mat at his high school in 2013. To this day, the crime remains unsolved. The preliminary autopsy ruled his death accidental, but the family, doubting it was an accident due to the state in which his body was found and because surveillance footage went missing, ordered a private, second autopsy that concluded death by blunt force trauma. Director Jason Pollock spent four years uncovering new evidence and working with the family to shed light on the case that he says was covered up by school officials, law enforcement and two schoolmates of…

Maintaining the integrity of the archival footage of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival with performances by artists including Nina Simone, Sly and the Family Stone, and Stevie Wonder was paramount in the making of Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s Summer of Soul (… or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised). For Hulu’s musical film and Black history documentary, the material comes together with new interviews in an edit by Joshua L. Pearson. Of the sound, rerecording mixer Paul Hsu says, “The whole task was really keeping that woven structure very much alive. “It’s a little bit of a high-wire act where you have to maintain that energy through the entire film,” he adds. “It’s very artful in the sense that there’s a lot of information, there are a lot of interviews,…

Dan Stevens has played lawyers, knights, Eurovision singers and Marvel characters. Now, with Germany’s Oscar submission for best international feature, I’m Your Man, the Downton Abbey and Legion star can add futuristic humanoid robot to his repertoire. Another feat: The Englishman speaks excellent German, a language he learned in school, in the film. Maria Schrader (Unorthodox) directed and with Jan Schomburg co-wrote the Berlin Film Festival winner and Bleecker Street release, which revolves around an archaeologist named Alma (Maren Eggert) who accepts an offer to live with a robot designed to be her perfect life partner. Schrader and Stevens talked to THR about their collaboration on the film, Stevens’ knowledge of German and his newfound interest in rumba dancing. Maria, where did you get the idea for the story? MARIA…

CLIFF WALKERS CHINA Three-time Oscar nominee Zhang Yimou (Hero, House of Flying Daggers, Raise the Red Lantern) is one of the few international talents who has regularly won over Academy voters with genre films. His latest, China’s official contender, is a spy thriller following four Communist Party special agents on a top-secret mission in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. ESCAPE FROM MOGADISHU SOUTH KOREA Ryoo Seung-wan’s action thriller is based on the true story of diplomats at the North and South Korean embassies who were forced to cooperate with one another in order to escape Somalia after the outbreak of the country’s civil war in 1991. Described as “South Korea’s Argo,” the film’s backers hope it will have a similar appeal to Academy voters. LAMB ICELAND A critic and…

Asghar Farhadi’s latest drama, A Hero, debuts stateside on Amazon in January and is a leading contender in the best international film race, but the Iranian filmmaker is no stranger to the Oscars. In 2012, Farhadi’s A Separation earned the international prize, then called best foreign language film, before the category’s name change in 2020. The feature starred Leila Hatami as Simin, who seeks to divorce her husband of 14 years, Nader (Peyman Moadi), in an effort to leave Iran with their daughter. Simin’s request is denied in family court when it’s decided their troubles do not warrant the marriage’s dissolution. The couple separates, and the conflict of egos that ensues overshadows the best interests of their child (played by Farhadi’s daughter, Sarina Farhadi). Unlike his global breakthrough, 2009’s About…

BEST PICTURE Nightmare Alley The last unseen contender of this season, Guillermo del Toro’s thriller — inspired by a 1946 novel that was made into a movie a year later — finally showed its cards Dec. 1 at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. Reactions were overwhelmingly positive, especially to Bradley Cooper and Cate Blanchett’s performances. Belfast Kenneth Branagh’s charming autobiographical film, which stars Jamie Dornan, Caitríona Balfe, Judi Dench and newcomer Jude Hill, and which Focus believes can hold off West Side Story and King Richard, was toasted during a Dec. 3 San Vicente Bungalows screening and special reception hosted by Robert Pattinson. BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE Introducing, Selma Blair Actress Selma Blair, whose battle with MS is chronicled in Rachel Fleit’s doc, received the Equity in Entertainment Award (for…

President, the documentary from filmmaker Camilla Nielsson, offers a gripping and unprecedented front seat to recent history — as well as dire warnings about what lies ahead. The incidents it chronicles likely sound familiar to American viewers. A young and progressive political upstart runs on a message of hope. A national election faces allegations of widespread fraud. A bullying leader regularly evades accountability to the press. Though President is set over the past four years in Zimbabwe, Nielsson and Thandiwe Newton, one of the film’s executive producers, believe the story continuing to unfold there reflects the fragile fate of constitutional democracy worldwide. “This is not just a Zimbabwean story,” Nielsson says. “It’s a story about the importance of democracy and what happens when it’s disintegrated.” Newton, who is of Zimbabwean…