Documenting Changes

🏆 Dispatches from Awards Season

My latest deep dive into an Oscar short film category. After last week’s dip into the animation pool, I swim with the 117 films that have officially been submitted in the Documentary Short Subject category. We check in on the candidates from the major streamers and publishers, as well as festival darlings. Could an animated documentary win? And what hot-button issues might resonate with voters the most?

• Read the article on Short of the Week

• Explore the 117 shorts in a fresh Shortverse Collection

• 26 of the films are streaming now

🔗 10 Things We’re Paying Attention To

1. Can You Believe the Doc You’re Watching? - Alissa Wilkinson takes to the pages of the Times with a thought-provoking piece on the collision of AI and Doc filmmaking, highlighting worries that it could undermine audience trust.

2. Could a Doc Ever Be Nominated for Best Picture? - Meanwhile, at IDFA, Variety recaps a session with an Academy Director about the Oscar process, and pushes being made behind the scenes to set the stage for a first-ever documentary Best Picture nomination. Interesting nuggets here.

3. Rounding Up Doc-World Awards - It’s a busy time in the Doc calendar. Doc NYC just wrapped, announcing its winners (kudos to short-to-feature project Lowland Kids!). IDFA in Amsterdam likewise just concluded, its winners are here. Finally, across the Atlantic, the British Documentary Awards, the prestigious Griersons, were celebrated.

4. Public Media Fights On, With New Initiatives - The Trump admin’s war on public media in the US has caused immense disruption and worry, so it’s good to hear that some of its stalwart programs are expanding. Frontline announced Frontline Features, a new initiative to produce and distribute high-level features and shorts, while ITVS, known for Independent Lens announced the formation of a new Independent Lens Creator Lab.

5. A “Lost Kill Bill Chapter” to Premiere…in Fortnite?!? - Another week, another bit of Fortnite news I guess. Variety has details on a new Quentin Tarantino x Uma Thurman short film that adapts Yuki’s Revenge, a section cut from the original films. It premiered in the game today, and will play with select screenings next week of Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair, a special theatrical release of the two films cut together.

6. Cheer Up on Not Getting into Sundance - The Thanksgiving holiday is notorious as a time that thousands of filmmaker dreams get crushed as rejection notices from Sundance go out. Pep talks are a staple on the social web but I especially like this new one from Penny Lane, one of the best working documentary filmmakers out there, in her new Substack blog.

7. Sizing Up Rotterdam’s Cinemart - Variety analyzes the 21 projects that will take part in Rotterdam’s celebrated co-production market in February. Leading the way is a bit of news: S/W alums Andrea Ellsworth and Kasey Elise Walker, who have been taking their short-to-feature version of The Dispute to labs for the past year, have partnered with Riley Keough and Donald Glover’s production companies! Additional alums in the market are Luis De Filippis, and Arthur Gay, who will debut on our site on December 9th.

8. A Tiny Peek at Short Film Award Campaigning - The process is notoriously opaque, but ScreenDaily has a new piece that interviews key strategists and ever so slightly illuminates how they approach award runs.

9. A Recap of Ari Aster’s First Square Peg Social - A few months back we shared submission details to this new initiative from celebrated filmmakers Ari Aster and Lars Knudsen. An incubator, a lab, a mentorship and networking club, what is was seemed a bit unclear. What transpired was a 4-day camp in Austin with 35 killer talents familiar to S/W readers, culled from 1800 submitters. Indiewire spoke to particpants and mentors to get impressions.

10. What To Watch This Weekend - Well, since the holiday pushed this out, it’s no longer the weekend and I won’t recommend any theatrical engagements. Instead, I’ll plug two great films you can watch at home, which also fit our documentary theme.
    
    First, Joanna Arnow’s odd, 50min auto-documentary, I Hate Myself :) is streaming, for free, on the cool curatorial site, Le Cinema Club. I talked about Arnow at length in this newsletter around the release of her feature, The Feeling That the Time For Doing Something Has Passed, and I think she’s a rare talent. This is a good chance to catch up with one of her formative early works.
    
    I’ll also plug a splendid documentary from alum Liza Mandelup which is now out on VOD. I caught Caterpillar earlier this month and it knocked my socks off. It’s the sort of character-based, cinematic documentary I really respond to, and yet I still couldn’t believe some of the twists it took. Give it a try.

📅 This Week on Short of the Week