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Cinema Eye to Present Legacy Award to The Times of Harvey Milk

Audience Choice Prize Voting Open | Tickets on Sale

December 14, 2016 | New YorkThe Times of Harvey Milk, Rob Epstein’s landmark 1984 film about the life and assassination of the first openly gay elected official in California, will receive the 2017 Legacy Award at the 10th Annual Cinema Eye Honors in January.

The film will screen on Tuesday, January 10, the night before the annual awards ceremony, at the Museum of the Moving Image, with Rob Epstein in conversation following the film. The Legacy Award will be presented to Epstein earlier that day at the Cinema Eye Honors Lunch in Manhattan. Tickets for the film will go on sale in the coming weeks.

The Honors Lunch will celebrate The Times of Harvey Milk as well as the 10 filmmakers and 20 films named earlier this year to Cinema Eye’s List of Essential Nonfiction for the First Decade of the organization. Acclaimed filmmakers such as Heidi Ewing & Rachel Gracy, Alex Gibney, Steve James, Laura Poitras and Frederick Wiseman, along with films like The Act of Killing, The Arbor, Cutie and the Boxer, Man on Wire and Stories We Tell will be honored.

The Lunch will also recognize this year’s Unforgettables, the notable and significant documentary subjects from the past year’s films. This year’s winner of the Heterodox Award, a prize for narrative films that blur the line between fiction and nonfiction, will also be announced at the event.

This is the eighth year that Cinema Eye will present a Legacy Award, intended to honor classic films that inspire a new generation of filmmakers and embody the Cinema Eye mission: excellence in creative and artistic achievements in nonfiction films.

In addition to this year’s Legacy Award, voting is now open for the Cinema Eye Audience Choice Prize, where ten of this year’s most acclaimed and discussed films are nominated, including Oscar shortlisted films Gleason, I Am Not Your Negro, Life, Animated, Tower and Weiner. The Audience Choice Prize is the only Cinema Eye Honor where voting is open to the public. Votes are cast on the Cinema Eye website at http://cinemaeyehonors.com/vote.

Tickets are now on sale at http://cinemaeyehonors.com/tickets for the 2017 Cinema Eye Honors Award Ceremony, which includes a pre-reception hosted at the Museum of the Moving Image by HBO Documentary Films, the Premiere Sponsor of Cinema Eye Week.

2017 Cinema Eye Honors Audience Choice Prize Nominees

  • 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

The Times of Harvey Milk credits:
Directed by: Robert Epstein
Produced by: Richard Schmiechen
Edited by: Deborah Hoffmann and Robert Epstein
Cinematograpy by: Frances Reid
Original music by: Mark Isham
Sound by: Dan Gleich