Ten nonfiction short films were announced today as finalists for the 2016 Cinema Eye Honors, the 9th edition of the largest annual celebration for and recognition of the nonfiction film artform and the creators of those films.
The announcement of the annual Cinema Eye Shorts List was made on the opening day of the 2015 Camden International Film Festival (CIFF), a key festival partner of the Cinema Eye Honors. For the second year in a row, all ten films, which are among the most acclaimed short documentaries of the year, will screen this weekend at the 11th Annual Camden International Film Festival. This is the first time that all the filmmakers on the list have never been on the Shorts List before or a previous Cinema Eye nominee.
This marks the fourth year that the CEH Shorts List has been announced in Camden. This January will mark the seventh year that CIFF hosts their annual reception on the eve of Cinema Eye’s award ceremony. A key part of Cinema Eye Week, a multi-day event held from January 10-13 in New York City in January 2016, the CIFF reception has become the largest single event for nonfiction film in the city and an important kickoff for the new year in the documentary community.
From the ten finalists on this year’s Shorts List, five films will be named as nominees for the Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Short Filmmaking Award. Nominees in that category and nearly a dozen feature film categories will be announced on Wednesday, November 11 in Copenhagen, Denmark at CPH:DOX. Awards will be presented during Cinema Eye Honors on January 13, 2016, in New York City.
This year’s ten finalists are:
Body Team 12 (Liberia/USA)
Directed by David Darg
Born to Be Mild (UK)
Directed by Andy Oxley
The Breath (Switzerland)
Directed by Fabian Kaiser
Buffalo Juggalos (USA)
Directed by Scott Cummings
Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah (Canada)
Directed by Adam Benzine
The Face of Ukraine: Casting Oksana Baiul (Australia)
Directed by Kitty Green
Hotel 22 (USA)
Directed by Elizabeth Lo
{The And} Marcela & Rock (USA)
Directed by Topaz Adizes
The Solitude of Memory (Mexico/USA)
Directed by Juan Pablo González
Super-Unit (Poland)
Directed by Teresa Czepiec
Finalists for the Short Filmmaking award were determined in voting by top short film/documentary programmers from international film festivals.
Members of this year’s Short Film Nominations Committee included: Nominations Chair Charlotte Cook (Hot Docs), Claire Aguilar (Sheffield), Chris Boeckman (True/False), Cara Cusumano (Tribeca), Ben Fowlie (Camden), Claudette Godfrey (SXSW), Doug Jones (Images Cinema), Ted Mott (Full Frame), Veton Nurkollari (Dokufest Kosovo), Dan Nuxoll (Rooftop), Andrea Passafiume (AFI DOCS), Mike Plante (Sundance), Rachel Rosen (San Francisco) and Kim Yutani (Sundance).
This is the sixth year that Cinema Eye has presented an award for Nonfiction Short Filmmaking. Previous winners in the category include The Poodle Trainer (directed by Vance Malone, 2011), Diary (Tim Hetherington, 2012), Goodbye Mandima (Kwa Heri Mandima) (Robert-Jan Lacombe, 2013), A Story for the Modlins (Sergio Oksman, 2014) and The Lion’s Mouth Opens (Lucy Walker, 2015).