Truffle hunters. Thieves. Unhappy campers. Seniors. Octopuses. Today, the Academy announced its diverse shortlist of documentaries that make it to the nominating round. Members of the documentary branch have selected thirteen films. In alphabetical order:
Boys State (Apple+)
One thousand teenage boys from Texas join together to build a representative government from the ground up.
Collective (VOD on Prime, YouTube, Vudu)
Journalists uncover health care fraud in the wake of a deadly nightclub fire in Bucharest, Romania.
Crip Camp (Netflix)
This film starts in 1971 at a summer camp designed for teens with disabilities and follows the campers as they become activists for the disability rights movement and fight for accessibility legislation.
This doc, exec produced by Barack and Michele Obama, won the audience award at Sundance and was named one of Rolling Stone's top films of 2020.
Dick Johnson Is Dead (Netflix)
As her father nears the end of his life, filmmaker Kirsten Johnson stages his death in inventive and comical photos to help them both face the inevitable. Already named a top film by Rolling Stone, The New York Times, and Entertainment Weekly, this film may be the most lighthearted documentary about death ever.
Gunda (In theaters and VOD through virtual cinema Film Forum)
Gunda shares a day in the life of a pig, two cows, and a one-legged chicken. Joaquin Phoenix is the executive producer of this pig's-eye view of the world. I didn't make any of that up.
MLK/FBI (VOD on iTunes, Amazon, YouTube, Vudu etc.)
Based on newly declassified files, this doc explores the US government's surveillance and harassment of Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Mole Agent (On Hulu or VOD)
A warmhearted look at aging with an unusual viewpoint. An 83-year-old senior spy poses as a resident in a Chilean nursing home to see if he can find signs of abuse.
My Octopus Teacher (Netflix)
If you haven't seen it already, the hit film from filmmaker Craig Foster documents a year spent forging a relationship with a wild octopus in a South African kelp forest.
Notturno (VOD Amazon Prime, Vudu)
This doc captures the not-so-everyday everyday life on the borders between Iraq, Kurdistan, Syria, and Lebanon. It was selected as the Italian entry for Oscar's Best International Feature Film.
The Painter and the Thief (On Hulu and VOD)
An unlikely bond that seems the stuff of bad fiction but it's art, literally. Czech artist Barbora Kysilkova develops an unlikely friendship with the man who stole two of her paintings.
Time (Amazon Prime)
An entrepreneur, with the ironic last name Rich, spends the last two decades campaigning for the release of her husband who is serving a 60-year prison sentence for a robbery they both committed in a moment of desperation.
The Truffle Hunters (Opens March 5)
A group of men in their seventies and eighties searches for rare, expensive, and delicious white Alba truffles deep in the forests of Piedmont, Italy. Sweet!
Welcome to Chechnya (HBO)
During the anti-gay purges in Chechnya, LGBT refugees are filmed with hidden cameras as they made their way out of Russia through a network of safehouses aided by activists.
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