The nominations for the 91st Academy Awards were announced on January 22. The nominees for Best Documentary (Short Subject) were
Black Sheep,
End Game,
Lifeboat,
A Night at the Garden and
Period. End of Sentence. All five were available online to view, even before they were packaged for a limited theatrical release in February. It can be difficult to predict which of the titles here will win come Oscar night on February 24, but I can certainly take an educated guess. If nothing else, I can also simply state, which of the five is my preference.
If one looks back at the winners in this category over the past decade, one indicator is that almost every winner with the exception of a few had a showing at either the International Documentary Association aka the IDA Awards or it had a showing at the News & Documentary Emmy Awards. This year, the only two that fit that description is
Black Sheep and
Lifeboat. It's not always the case, but a film can be a winner at the Oscars, if it has connections to a previous award-winner. This year, that includes
End Game and
A Night at the Garden.
A Night at the Garden is by Marshall Curry. Curry has been nominated for Best Documentary Feature for his film
Street Fight (2005), which profiled the mayoral campaign of Newark, New Jersey councilman, Cory Booker. Booker is the politician who just tossed his hat in the ring for president in the 2020 election. Curry was nominated again for Best Documentary Feature for
If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front (2011). This film will be his third nomination. It was also produced by Laura Poitras who won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature for her film
Citizenfour (2014). It has a lot of caliber talent behind it, yet it's the shortest of all the nominees. Despite its subject matter, that of a Nazi rally in 1939, which has eerily similar vibes to the recent Charlottesville rally in 2017, it also feels the slightest.
End Game is by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman. Epstein too has been nominated twice for Best Documentary Feature. The first time was for
The Times of Harvey Milk (1984). The second time was for
Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt (1989). He won the Oscar each of those times as well. This is Friedman's first Oscar nomination, but he's worked with Epstein before on the Emmy-nominated,
The Celluloid Closet (1995), which aired on HBO. It just so happens that their film is the longest and probably the most emotional, as it focuses on terminal patients at a medical center in San Francisco. As depressing as the subject matter is, it's heartening to see the doctors who work there comfort and explain things to their patients, particularly Dr. BJ Miller who practices medicine despite being a multiple amputee.
Period. End of Sentence. is by Rayka Zehtabchi. This film focuses on women in a rural area outside New Delhi in northern India. The women learn to make sanitary pads for menstruation. It seems odd, but many women don't have access to pads. It's interesting to see the process from start to finish of how this particular product can be made on a small scale. It's also very inspiring to see women who have been marginalized become empowered and rise above cultural or social restrictions.
Lifeboat is by Skye Fitzgerald and Bryn Mooser. Fitzgerald worked as a camera operator for
If a Tree Falls, the doc by Curry. Mooser has been nominated in this category before for
Body Team 12, which is a short about people who collect the bodies of Ebola victims. Fitzgerald is the director and Mooser is the producer. This is the film that probably has a good chance of winning on Oscar night. It's a powerful depiction of Sea-Watch, a team of rescue boats that save refugees afloat in the Mediterranean Sea, trying to escape human atrocities in places like Libya and attempting to make it to Europe. The only knock against is that it feels a little too much like
Fire At Sea (2016), another Oscar-nominated documentary.
Black Sheep is by Ed Perkins and Jonathan Chinn. It's also a IDA Award nominee, which increases its chances of winning an Oscar. It's also the film that gets my vote, if I were an Academy member. Director Perkins crafts what feels like is the heir apparent to Errol Morris. Perkins has his subject, a young black kid from London, look directly into the camera as he tells a very intimate and shocking story. All the while, we see detailed and very well-done reenactments. The subject is Cornelius Walker whose family moved from London to Essex, and into an all-white neighborhood dominated by racists. Kai Francis Lewis, in a brilliant, wordless performance, plays Cornelius as a teenager. What plays out is an incredible exploration of racism, bullying, peer pressure, masculinity, self-hatred, ingratiation, fatherhood and childhood. It's less than a half-hour, but it gives more than a lot of feature length films give. It's wonderful.
A Night at the Garden - 7 mins. (Vimeo)
End Game - 40 mins. (Netflix)
Period. End of Sentence. - 25 mins. (Netflix)
Lifeboat - 34 mins. (The New Yorker)
Black Sheep - 26 mins. (The Guardian)
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