Laura Poitras’s documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed appears to be on more solid ground as a possible Oscar frontrunner, after the release of DOC NYC’s influential shortlist of the year’s top nonfiction films.
ATBATB made the DOC NYC cut of 15 feature films Tuesday, a day after it missed out on a nomination as Best Documentary Feature for the Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards (Poitras did earn a Best Director nomination and her film was nominated as Best Political Documentary by the critics group).
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, about artist Nan Goldin and her indefatigable campaign against the Sackler family of Oxycontin ignominy, last month became only the second documentary to win the top prize in Venice. Joining the film on the DOC NYC shortlist is Fire of Love, the National Geographic documentary that has earned more than $1.5 million in worldwide release. It tells the story of Maurice and Katia Krafft, a French couple who dedicated their lives to the study of volcanoes and were killed in the 1991 eruption of Mt. Unzen in Japan.
Two other National Geographic films claimed spots on the DOC NYC shortlist [see full list below]. The Territory tells the story of an Indigenous tribe in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest who are trying to protect their land from illegal mining, logging and homesteading. Retrograde, by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Matthew Heineman, “captures the final nine months of America’s twenty-year war in Afghanistan from multiple perspectives: one of the last US Special Forces units deployed there; a young Afghan general and his corps fighting to defend their homeland against all odds; and the civilians desperately attempting to flee as the country collapses and the Taliban take over.”
“Award season voters truly have an amplitude of outstanding documentaries to consider this year,” DOC NYC artistic director Jaie Laplante noted in a statement. “DOC NYC’s Short Lists represent our picks for those films that should go on to year-end glory.”
DOC NYC, the largest all-documentary festival in the U.S., runs from November 9-17 in-person in Manhattan, with an online component extending until November 27. All the shortlisted films will have theatrical screenings at the festival, “often with the directors in person,” according to the festival.
The year’s top-grossing documentary, Moonage Daydream, made the DOC NYC shortlist. Brett Morgen’s immersive music doc explores the brilliance of David Bowie as a creative force. Fellow music-themed documentaries The Return of Tanya Tucker – Featuring Brandi Carlile, Louis Armstrong’s Black and Blues, and Mija also landed spots on the shortlist.
Snubbed by DOC NYC list was Good Night Oppy, Ryan White’s film about NASA’s Mars Rover mission which earned six nominations Monday for the Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards, tying for the most with Fire of Love. (White did make the DOC NYC shorts shortlist with his film State of Alabama Vs. Brittany Smith).
The Netflix/Participant film Descendant, executive produced by Questlove – winner of the Oscar earlier this year for his doc Summer of Soul – made the features cut. The film, from the Obamas’ Higher Ground Productions, focuses on the last slave ship known to have reached U.S. waters and the descendants of the enslaved people carried aboard that vessel. It drops on Netflix this Friday.
All That Breathes, Navalny, Last Flight Home, and The Janes are among the other prominent documentaries to earn recognition from DOC NYC. Below are the shortlisted feature documentaries, followed by DOC NYC’s shortlisted short films.
Short List: Features
ALL THAT BREATHES
Director: Shaunak Sen; Producers: Shaunak Sen, Aman Mann, Teddy Leifer
Winner of prizes at Cannes and Sundance, All That Breathes follows two brothers in New Delhi dedicated to caring for birds. (Courtesy of Sideshow/Submarine Deluxe/HBO Documentary Films)
ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED
Director: Laura Poitras; Producers: Nan Goldin, Yoni Golijov, Laura Poitras
Oscar-winning director Laura Poitras (Citizenfour) profiles artist and activist Nan Goldin as she leads protests against the Sackler family and their company Purdue Pharma. (Courtesy of NEON/Participant/HBO Documentary Films)
BEBA
Director: Rebeca Huntt; Producer Sofia Geld
Director Rebecca Huntt makes a stunning debut in this personal documentary that traces her Dominican and Venezuelan roots as she comes of age in New York City. (Courtesy of NEON)
DESCENDANT
Director: Margaret Brown; Kyle Martin, Essie Chambers, Margaret Brown
Filmmaker Margaret Brown returns to her hometown of Mobile, Alabama to reflect on the legacy of the last known ship carrying enslaved Africans to enter the United States (Courtesy of Netflix/Participant)
FIRE OF LOVE
Directed by Sara Dosa; Producers: Shane Boris, Ina Fichman, Sara Dosa
Narrated by Miranda July, Fire of Love is an essayistic portrait of the French volcanologists Maurice and Katia Krafft. (Courtesy of National Geographic Documentary Films)
THE JANES
Director: Tia Lessin, Emma Pildes; Producers: Emma Pildes, Daniel Arcana, Jessica Levin
The Janes explores the hidden history of a Chicago grassroots organization that helped women end unwanted pregnancies in the years before Roe v. Wade. (Courtesy of HBO Documentary Films)
LAST FLIGHT HOME
Director: Ondi Timoner; Producer: Ondi Timoner, David Turner
Award-winning filmmaker Ondi Timoner (Dig!, We Live in Public) creates a deeply personal family portrait about her 92-year-old father Eli as he chooses to end his own life. (Courtesy of MTV Documentary Films)
LOUIS ARMSTRONG’S BLACK AND BLUES
Director: Sacha Jenkins; Producers: Sacha Jenkins, Sara Bernstein, Jason Wilkes, Julie Anderson
Filmmaker Sacha Jenkins (Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men) gains access to Louis Armstrong’s personal archives, which reveal multiple dimensions of the jazz pioneer. (Courtesy of Apple Original Films)
MIJA
Director: Isabel Castro; Producers: Isabel Castro, Tabs Breese, Yesenia Tlahuel
Mija takes us into the world of Chicano pop music through the eyes of young Mexican American talent manager Doris Muñoz. (Courtesy of Disney Original Documentary)
MOONAGE DAYDREAM
Director/Producer: Brett Morgen
Drawing upon a wealth of unseen material from his archive, this film explores David Bowie’s career with an approach as bold and visually inventive as he was. (Courtesy of NEON/HBO Documentary Films)
NAVALNY
Director: Daniel Roher; Producers: Diane Becker, Shane Boris, Melanie Miller, Odessa Rae
This real-life thriller follows the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny as he attempts to identify the agents sent to assassinate him. (Courtesy of Warner Bros./CNN Films/HBO Max)
RETROGRADE
Director: Matthew Heineman; Producers: Matthew Heineman, Caitlin McNally, Javed Rezayee
Matthew Heineman documents the last days of American occupation through the eyes of Afghanistan witnesses and records a country’s doomed descent into terror. (Courtesy of National Geographic Documentary Films)
THE RETURN OF TANYA TUCKER – FEATURING BRANDI CARLILE
Director: Kathlyn Horan; Producers: Christopher Clements, Carolyn Hepburn, Julie Goldman, Kathlyn Horan
Years after the trailblazing country music star Tanya Tucker stopped recording, her superfan Brandi Carlile brings her back to the studio to record an album Carlile has written to restore her rightful place in the country music pantheon. (Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics)
“SR.”
Director: Chris Smith; Producers: Emily Barclay Ford, Kevin Ford, Robert Downey Jr., Susan Downey
A lovingly irreverent portrait of the life and career of maverick filmmaker Robert Downey Sr. that evolves into a larger meditation on art, mortality, and healing generational dysfunction. (Courtesy of Netflix)
THE TERRITORY
Director: Alex Pritz; Producers: Darren Aronofsky, Sigrid Dyekjær, Lizzie Gillett, Will N. Miller
Filmmaker Alex Pritz collaborates with the the Uru-eu-wau-wau community indigenous to Brazil’s Amazonian rainforest to document their conflict with farmers seeking to clear the land. (Courtesy of National Geographic Documentary Films)
Short List: Shorts
ANASTASIA
Director: Sarah McCarthy; Producers: Sasha Odynova, Sarah McCarthy
Russian activist Anastasia Shevchenko comes to grips with the loss of her daughter after two years of house arrest for speaking out against the government. (Courtesy of MTV Documentary Films)
ANGOLA DO YOU HEAR US? VOICES FROM A PLANTATION PRISON
Director: Cinque Northern; Producer: Catherine Gund
When Liza Jessie Peterson performs her one-woman play at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, she activates the men incarcerated in America’s largest prison-plantation. (Courtesy of MTV Documentary Films)
AS FAR AS THEY CAN RUN
Director: Tanaz Eshaghian; Producers: Tanaz Eshaghian, Christoph Jörg
Three young adults join a running program for disabled youth in Pakistan, hoping to shift perspectives in their rural community. (Courtesy of MTV Documentary Films)
THE BEST CHEF IN THE WORLD
Director / Producer: Ben Proudfoot
Oscar winner and DOC NYC alum Ben Proudfoot profiles Sally Schmidt, the underrecognized progenitor of California Cuisine. (Courtesy of The New York Times Op-Docs)
THE ELEPHANT WHISPERERS
Director: Kartiki Gonsalves; Producers: Guneet Monga, Achin Jain
Beautiful and tender, The Elephant Whisperers features a family as they raise two young elephants in a sanctuary in South India. (Courtesy of Netflix)
THE FLAGMAKERS
Directors / Producers: Cynthia Wade, Sharon Liese
Flags at the largest American flag factory in the country are stitched by refugees and immigrants whose stories redefine what it is to be American. (Courtesy of National Geographic Documentary Films)
IN FLOW OF WORDS
Director: Eliane Esther Bots; Producer: Manon Bovenkerk
An experimental film about three language interpreters at the Yugoslavia Tribunal in The Hague and the wrenching moments they translate. (Courtesy of The New Yorker)
LONG LINE OF LADIES
Directors: Rayka Zehtabchi, Shaandiin Tome; Producers: Garrett Schiff, Rayka Zehtabchi, Sam Davis, Pimm Tripp-Allen
A girl and her community prepare for her Ihuk, the once-dormant coming of age ceremony of the Karuk tribe of Northern California.
THE MARTHA MITCHELL EFFECT
Directors: Anne Alvergue, Debra McClutchy; Producers: Beth Levison, Judith Mizrachy
She was once as famous as Jackie O. And then she tried to take down a president. The Martha Mitchell Effectis an archival documentary portrait of the unlikeliest of whistleblowers. (Courtesy of Netflix)
MY DISABILITY ROADMAP
Directors: Samuel Habib, Dan Habib; Producer: Dan Habib
Samuel Habib has one goal: to be an independent adult without the support of his parents. He travels across America and interviews key figures in the disability rights movement in order to create his own playbook. (Courtesy of The New York Times Op-Docs)
NASIR
Directors: Nasir Bailey, Jackson Kroopf; Producer: Jackson Kroopf
The DOC NYC 2021 Shorts Grand Jury Prizewinner captures the tender story of Nasir as he opens up to his family about his transition. (Courtesy of L.A. Times Studios)
THE PANOLA PROJECT
Directors / Producers: Rachael DeCruz, Jeremy S. Levine
This subtle yet engaging documentary features Dorothy Oliver as she organizes to keep her rural Alabama town safe from COVID-19 by vaccinating everyone. (Courtesy of The New Yorker)
SHUT UP AND PAINT
Directors: Titus Kaphar, Alex Mallis; Producer: Chloe Gbai
Celebrated artist Titus Kaphar takes the mic and camera to share his thoughts on race and the art market. (Courtesy of POV Shorts)
STATE OF ALABAMA VS. BRITTANY SMITH
Director: Ryan White; Producers: Jessica Hargrave, Ryan White
Unfolding in real time by focusing on the experience of one woman on trial for murder, the film is a layered examination of gender, the American south, domestic and sexual violence and the failures of our criminal justice system. (Courtesy of Netflix)
YOU CAN’T STOP SPIRIT
Directors: Vashi Korin; Producers: Jazzi McGilbert, Sean Kilgore-Han
This mesmerizing portrait of the “baby dolls” of Mardi Gras explores the storied tradition as a spiritual and artistic practice among a group of New Orleans women. (Courtesy of The New York Times Op-Docs)