EXCLUSIVE: The Cinema Eye Honors announced its first round of nominations today for artistic achievement in documentary film and series, with HBO’s Four Hours at the Capitol earning the most of any contender [full list below].
The documentary by Jamie Roberts about the January 6 insurrection scored nominations for Broadcast Film, Broadcast Editing and Broadcast Cinematography. Peter Jackson’s Disney+ series The Beatles: Get Back, landed two nominations — for Broadcast Series and Broadcast Editing. Get Back swept five Primetime Emmy categories last month.
Netflix
Rory Kennedy’s Downfall: The Case Against Boeing, snubbed by the Emmys, earned a Cinema Eye Honors nomination for Broadcast Film. It will go up against Four Hours at the Capitol, and Emmy winner George Carlin’s American Dream, the two-part HBO film directed by Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio, among other contenders.
Nanfu Wang’s HBO docuseries Mind Over Murder, which premiered after the cut-off date for this year’s Emmys, earned a nomination today for Broadcast Series.
This is the 16th edition of the Cinema Eye Honors, founded to recognize not only the best nonfiction films and series of the year, but constituent disciplines including producing, directing, cinematography, editing, musical score, sound design and graphic design/animation.
“It was the first and remains the only international nonfiction award to recognize the whole creative team,” the Cinema Eye Honors notes. The awards ceremony will take place Thursday, January 12, 2023 at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, New York.
Today’s nominations will be followed by an additional two nomination announcements leading up to the awards show. Next Tuesday, the Cinema Eye Honors will reveal its list of The Unforgettables – “the year’s notable [documentary] subjects” – as well as the Audience Choice Prize Long List. On Thursday, November 20, the awards organization comes out with its full list of nominations, including Outstanding Nonfiction Feature and Outstanding Direction, a major predictor of the documentaries that will go on to earn Oscar nominations.
The announcement of the initial nominations took place today at the annual Cinema Eye Fall Lunch in downtown Los Angeles. Among the highlights — news that the 2023 Legacy Award will go to Terry Zwigoff’s Crumb, in recognition of “the filmmaker’s acclaimed 1995 portrait of underground cartoonist R. Crumb.”
Photo by Timothy Hiatt/Getty Images for Ebert Fest
In a mordant statement, Zwigoff responded to word of the honor. “I’m glad to find out you don’t have to be dead to receive this award,” he commented. “I guess they figured I’m finally close enough. I’m so old my film career started decades before this Cinema Eye Award existed, so now they have to give me the Honorary version, the ‘Legacy Award.’ This is sort of like the Lifetime Achievement Award or the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award they hand out each year at the Oscars, except I haven’t achieved much in my lifetime, and I generally prefer the company of animals to humans. In any case, it’s a nice honor and I’m in great company judging from the list of prior recipients.”
Another highlight was the announcement of the 10 short documentaries to make Cinema Eye’s shortlist. That list will be whittled to a maximum of six final nominees next month.
Below is the full list of nominations announced today:
Broadcast Film Nominees
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes
Directed by James Jones | HBO Documentary Films/HBO Max
Downfall: The Case Against Boeing
Directed by Rory Kennedy | Netflix
Four Hours at the Capitol
Directed by Jamie Roberts | HBO Documentary Films/HBO Max
George Carlin’s American Dream
Directed by Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio | HBO Documentary Films/HBO Max
Playing With Sharks
Directed by Sally Aitken | Disney+
Nonfiction Series Nominees
The Beatles: Get Back
Directed by Peter Jackson | Disney+
Black and Missing
Directed by Geeta Gandbhir and Samantha Knowles | HBO Documentary Films/HBO Max
Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey
Directed by Rachel Dretzin | Netflix
LuLaRich
Directed by Julia Willoughby Nason and Jenner Furst | Amazon Studios
Mind Over Murder
Directed by Nanfu Wang | HBO Documentary Films/HBO Max
We Need to Talk About Cosby
Directed by W. Kamau Bell | Showtime
Anthology Series Nominees
How To with John Wilson
Nathan Fielder, Michael Koman, Clark Reinking and John Wilson, Executive Producers | HBO
Origins of Hip Hop
Peter Bittenbender, Mark Grande, Slane Hatch; Supervising Producers: Amira Lewally and Phoenix Skye Maulella, Executive Producers | A&E
Prehistoric Planet
Jon Favreau and Michael Gunton, Executive Producers; Tim Walker, Series Producer | Apple TV+
Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy
Tom Barry, Adam Hawkins, Eve Kay and Stanley Tucci, Executive Producers; Robin O’Sullivan, Series Producer | CNN
Women Who Rock
Jessica Hopper, Rachel Brill, John Varvatos, Derik Murray and Jesse James Miller, Executive Producers | EPIX
The World According to Jeff Goldblum
Jeff Goldblum, Jane Root, Sara Brailsford, Keith Addis and Arif Nurmohamed, Executive Producers, Ben Jessop, Series Producer | Disney+
Broadcast Editing Nominees
37 Words
Jessica Congdon and Dave Marcus | ESPN
The Beatles: Get Back
Jabeez Olssen | Disney+
Four Hours at the Capitol
Will Grayburn | HBO Documentary Films/HBO Max
How to Survive a Pandemic
Adam Evans and Tyler H. Walk | HBO Documentary Films/HBO Max
How To with John Wilson
Adam Locke-Norton | HBO
We Need to Talk About Cosby
Meg Ramsay | Showtime
Broadcast Cinematography Nominees
Four Hours at the Capitol
Jamie Roberts | HBO Documentary Films/HBO Max
jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy
Coodie Simmons and Danny “DNA” Sorge | Netflix
Playing With Sharks
Michael Taylor, Judd Overton, Nathan Barlow and Toby Ralph | Disney+
Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy
Andrew Muggleton | CNN
Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Come Off
Sam Jones and Jesse Green | HBO Documentary Films/HBO Max
Shorts List (Cinema Eye’s Annual List of the Year’s Top Short Documentaries)
Anastasia
Directed by Sarah McCarthy
The Dreamlife of Georgie Stone
Directed by Maya Newell
In Flow of Words
Directed by Eliane Esther Bots
The Joys and Sorrows of Young Yuguo
Directed by Ilinca Călugăreanu
Keys to the City
Directed by Ian Moubayed
Last Days of August
Directed by Robert Machoian and Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck
Long Line of Ladies
Directed by Rayka Zehtabchi and Shaandiin Tome
The Martha Mitchell Effect
Directed by Anne Alvergue and Debra McClutchy
Nuisance Bear
Directed by Jack Weisman and Gabriela Osio Vanden
Shut Up and Paint
Directed by Alex Mallis and Titus Kaphar
Legacy Award
Crumb
Directed by Terry Zwigoff; Produced by Lynn O’Donnell and Terry Zwigoff; Edited by Victor Livingston; Cinematography by Maryse Alberti; Music by David Beddinghaus; Sound by Scott Breindell
