Thirty-seven feature films and five shorts will vie for the 2017 Cinema Eye Honors as nominees have been announced. It’s the 10th annual edition of the nonfiction film awards, which recognize outstanding artistry and craft in documentary during Cinema Eye Week, a multi-day celebration in nonfiction filmmaking that takes place in New York City each year in January.
Winners will be announced at the 2017 Honors Ceremony on January 11 at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, which will be hosted for the second consecutive year by award-winning nonfiction filmmaker Steve James (“The Interrupters,” “Life Itself,” “Hoop Dreams”).
“I Am Not Your Negro,” Raoul Peck’s portrait of writer & civil rights leader James Baldwin, and “OJ: Made in America,” Ezra Edelman’s epic telling of race and the judicial system in Los Angeles, led all films with five nominations each, including Outstanding Nonfiction Feature, Direction and Editing.
Kristen Johnson’s “Cameraperson” and Gianfranco Rosi’s “Fire at Sea” each received four nominations, including Feature, Direction and Cinematography. Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg’s “Weiner” rounded out the films nominated this year for Outstanding Nonfiction Feature.
Gianfranco Rosi led all individuals with 4 nominations for his work as Director, Producer and Cinematographer on “Fire at Sea.” Ezra Edelman, Kirsten Johnson, Raoul Peck and HBO’s Sheila Nevins each received 3 nominations this year.
Ten films were nominated for the annual Audience Choice Prize, which often includes many of the year’s most popular and talked about films, including Roger Ross WIlliams’ “Life, Animated,” Clay Tweel’s “Gleason,” Barbara Kopple’s “Miss Sharon Jones!”, Tomer Heymann’s “Mr. Gaga,” Ido Haar’s “Presenting Princess Shaw,” David Farrier and Dylan Reeve’s “Tickled” and Keith Maitland’s “Tower.” Kopple’s nomination is noteworthy as she becomes the second filmmaker to be nominated for a Cinema Eye Honor after receiving the organization’s Legacy Award for a previous film. Kopple was honored for “Harlan County, U.S.A.” in 2014; the late Albert Maysles was nominated earlier this year for “Iris” and “In Transit” after having been given the Legacy Award for “Grey Gardens” in 2011.
Elsewhere, Alex Gibney continued to make Cinema Eye history, receiving his 7th nomination, this year for his work as a Producer on “Zero Days.” It’s the 6th Gibney-directed film to receive a nomination from Cinema Eye, the most for any filmmaker.
Filmmaker Michal Marczak received his third lifetime nomination for his latest, “All These Sleepless Nights,” where he is up for Outstanding Cinematography. He was nominated for both of his previous films: “At the Edge of Russia” (Debut, 2012) and “Fuck for Forest” (Spotlight, 2014). With the nod, he joins Bill Ross and Turner Ross as filmmakers nominated for each of their first three features. The Ross Brothers’ latest film, “Contemporary Color,” also became their fourth film to be nominated. It is up this year for Cinematography and Original Score. They are the first filmmakers in Cinema Eye’s ten-year history to have each of their first 4 films recognized with nominations.
HBO’s Sheila Nevins became the most nominated individual in Cinema Eye history, scoring her 9th, 10th and 11th nominations for HBO Documentary Films’ “Heroin: Cape Cod, USA,” “How to Dance in Ohio” and “Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures.” Joining those films in the Outstanding Nonfiction for Television category are A&E’s “Happy Valley” and Netflix’ “Making a Murderer” and “My Beautiful Broken Brain.”
Winners of the 10th Annual Cinema Eye Honors will be announced Wednesday, January 11, 2017 in New York at the Museum of the Moving Image. The Honors Ceremony is the culmination of Cinema Eye Week, an international celebration of the year’s best nonfiction artistry that includes screenings, parties and seminars.
The Museum of the Moving Image launches their 10-week screening series “Pushing the Envelope: A Decade of Documentary’s Cinema Eye Honors” this weekend. The series will continue up through the kickoff of Cinema Eye week in January.
More details about this year’s event, including additional sponsors, this year’s Heterodox nominees and this year’s Legacy Award recipient, will be announced in the coming weeks.
A full list of nominees follows:
Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking
Cameraperson
Directed by Kirsten Johnson, Produced by Kirsten Johnson and Marilyn Ness
Fire at Sea
Directed by Gianfranco Rosi, Produced by Donatello Palermo, Gianfranco Rosi, Serge Lalou and Camille Laemlé
I Am Not Your Negro
Directed by Raoul Peck, Produced by Rémi Grellety, Raoul Peck and Hébert Peck
OJ: Made in America
Directed by Ezra Edelman, Produced by Ezra Edelman and Caroline Waterlow
Weiner
Directed and Produced by Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg
Outstanding Achievement in Direction
Kirsten Johnson for Cameraperson
Gianfranco Rosi for Fire at Sea
Raoul Peck for I Am Not Your Negro
Robert Greene for Kate Plays Christine
Ezra Edelman for OJ: Made in America
Outstanding Achievement in Editing
Nels Bangerter for Cameraperson
Clay Tweel for Gleason
Alexandra Strauss for I Am Not Your Negro
Bret Granato, Maya Mumma, and Ben Sozanski for OJ: Made in America
Eli Despres for Weiner
Outstanding Achievement in Production
Stacey Reiss, Sharon Chang and Otto Bell for The Eagle Huntress
Donatello Palermo, Gianfranco Rosi, Serge Lalou and Camille Laemmlé for Fire at Sea
Ezra Edelman and Caroline Waterlow for OJ: Made in America
Carthew Neal for Tickled
Marc Shmuger and Alex Gibney for Zero Days
Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography
Michal Marczak and Maciej Twardowski for All These Sleepless Nights
Kirsten Johnson for Cameraperson
Jarred Alterman for Contemporary Color
Simon Niblett for The Eagle Huntress
Gianfranco Rosi for Fire at Sea
Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Films Made for Television
Happy Valley
Directed by Amir Bar-Lev, Produced by Jonathan Koch, Steve Michaels, John Battsek and Ken Dornstein
For A&E IndieFilms: Molly Thompson, Robert DeBitetto and David McKillop
Heroin: Cape Cod, USA
Directed and Produced by Steven Okazaki
For HBO Documentary Films: Sara Bernstein and Sheila Nevins
How to Dance in Ohio
Directed by Alexandra Shiva, Produced by Alexandra Shiva and Bari Pulman
For HBO Documentary Films: Nancy Abraham and Sheila Nevins
Making a Murderer
Directed and Produced by Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos
For Netflix: Lisa Nishimura and Adam Del Deo
Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures
Directed by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, Produced by Katharina Otto-Bernstein and Mona Card
For HBO Documentary Films: Sara Bernstein and Sheila Nevins
My Beautiful Broken Brain
Directed by Sophie Robinson and Lotje Sodderlan, Produced by Sophie Robinson
For Netflix: Lisa Nishimura and Adam Del Deo
Audience Choice Prize
Gleason
Directed by Clay Tweel
I Am Not Your Negro
Directed by Raoul Peck
Life, Animated
Directed by Roger Ross Williams
Miss Sharon Jones!
Directed by Barbara Kopple
Mr. Gaga
Directed by Tomer Heymann
Presenting Princess Shaw
Directed by Ido Haar
Sonita
Directed by Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami
Tickled
Directed by David Farrier and Dylan Reeve
Tower
Directed by Keith Maitland
Weiner
Directed by Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg
Outstanding Achievement in a Debut Feature Film
Craig Atkinson for Do Not Resist
Otto Bell for The Eagle Huntress
Jessica Edwards for Mavis!
Nanfu Wang for Hooligan Sparrow
David Farrier and Dylan Reeve for Tickled
Heidi Brandenburg and Mathew Orzel for When Two Worlds Collide
Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Score
Lubomir Grzelak for All These Sleepless Nights
Nominees to be Determined for Contemporary Color
Alexei Aigui for I Am Not Your Negro
Alex Lu for In the Pursuit of Silence
Gary Lionelli for OJ: Made in America
Outstanding Achievement in Graphic Design or Animation
Chris Kirk and Syd Garon for Author: The JT Leroy Story
Philippe Sonrier and Suzie Cimato for Life, Animated
Nominees to be Determined for Nuts!
Craig Staggs and Keith Maitland for Tower
Nominees to be Determined for Zero Days
Spotlight Award
All this Panic
Directed by Jenny Gage
Among the Believers
Directed by Hemal Trivedi and Mohammed Ali Naqvi
Dead Slow Ahead
Directed by Mauro Herce
The Land of the Enlightened
Directed by Pieter-Jan De Pue
The Pearl
Directed by Jessica Dimmock and Christopher LaMarca
Les Sauteurs (Those Who Jump)
Directed by Estephan Wagner and Moritz Siebert
Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Short Filmmaking
Bacon and God’s Wrath
Directed by Sol Friedman
Extremis
Directed by Dan Krauss
La Laguna
Directed by Aaron Schock
My Aleppo
Directed by Melissa Langer
Peace in the Valley
Directed by Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher
The Unforgettables
The year’s most notable and significant nonfiction film subjects (previously announced)
Michal Huszcza for All These Sleepless Nights
Audrie Pott and Daisy Coleman for Audrie and Daisy
Laura Albert for Author: The JT Leroy Story
Kirsten Johnson for Cameraperson
Aisholpan Nurgaiv for The Eagle Huntress
Samuela Pucillo for Fire at Sea
Steve Gleason and Michel Varisco for Gleason
Ye Haiyan for Hooligan Sparrow
Kate Shiel for Kate Plays Christine
Owen Suskind for Life, Animated
Sharon Jones for Miss Sharon Jones!
Peter Dunning for Peter and the Farm
Princess Shaw for Presenting Princess Shaw
Sonita Alidazeh for Sonita
Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner for Weiner
Cinema Eye was founded in 2007 to recognize excellence in artistry and craft in nonfiction filmmaking. It was the first and remains the only international nonfiction award to recognize the whole creative team, presenting annual craft awards in directing, producing, cinematography, editing, composing and graphic design/animation. Cinema Eye presents and produces the annual Cinema Eye Week and Honors Ceremony.
