When We Were Kings to Receive 2018 Cinema Eye Legacy Award
Heterodox Nominees Announced: Films That Blur the Line Between Fiction & Documentary
December 5, 2017, New York City, NY – Cinema Eye today announced that Leon Gast’s When We Were Kings is the recipient of the 2018 Legacy Award, a recognition of classic nonfiction filmmaking that continues to inspire new generations of filmmakers and remains as relevant today as it was when it was first released.
“At a time when sports, race and political protest are swirling together in the news, it is the perfect moment to honor Leon Gast’s brilliant documentary about one of The Greatest figures in sports history, a man unafraid to speak out on race, war or politics, Muhammad Ali,” said filmmaker Marshall Curry, Cinema Eye Co-Chair.
Cinema Eye also announced the five films that have been nominated this year for its annual Heterodox Award, honoring films that actively blur the line between narrative fiction and documentary. The films nominated are:
- The Florida Project | Directed by Sean Baker
- Menashe | Directed by Joshua Z Weinstein
- The Rider | Directed by Chloé Zhao
- Stranger in Paradise | Directed by Guido Hendrikx
- You Have No Idea How Much I Love You | Directed by Pawel Lozinski
This marks the eighth year for the Heterodox Award at Cinema Eye. Previous winners of the award are Matt Porterfield’s Putty Hill (2011), Mike Mills’ Beginners (2012), Jem Cohen’s Museum Hours (2013), Carlos Reygados’s Post Tenebras Lux (2014), Richard Linklater’s Boyhood (2015), Jafar Panahi’s Taxi (2016) and Michal Marczak’s All These Sleepless Nights (2017).
Sean Baker’s nomination for The Florida Project makes him the first filmmaker in Cinema Eye history to be nominated twice for the Heterodox Award. He was previously recognized for Tangerine in 2016. Guido Hendrikx’ Stranger in Paradise was also named last month as a nominee for the Cinema Eye Spotlight Award. It’s the first time that a film has been recognized in both categories.
With the announcement of this year’s Legacy Award recipient and Heterodox nominees, all of this year’s Cinema Eye nominated films and filmmakers have been revealed.
The Heterodox Award winner will be announced and the Legacy Award will be presented to director Leon Gast on Wednesday, January 10 at the annual Honors Lunch in Manhattan. There will be a screening of When We Were Kings, followed by a Q&A with Gast, that evening at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens.
Ten finalists for the Heterodox Award were selected in voting by the Cinema Eye Honors Nominations Committee, made up of more than 25 international programmers who specialize in nonfiction film. The ten finalists were then viewed and five nominees were selected by a second round committee, composed of 8 nonfiction programmers and journalists. The second round included Eric Allen Hatch (Director of Programming, Maryland Film Festival), Anna Rose Holmer (The Fits), Eric Hynes (Associate Curator of Film, Museum of the Moving Image), Rachel Jacobson (Executive Director, Film Streams), Doug Jones (Executive Director, Images Cinema), Aliza Ma (Head of Programming, Metrograph), Rachael Rakes (Programmer at Large, Art of the Real) and Alison Willmore (Film Critic, Buzzfeed).