2020 SHORT LIST: DIRECTING AWARD Winner of the Sundance Documentary Directing Award, Time is one of the most critically lauded films of the year. Filmmaker Garrett Bradley focuses on Fox Rich, an entrepreneur, author, and mother of six, who has spent 21 years fighting for the release of her husband, Rob, from a 60-year prison […]
This inspiring and vital film follows lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union as they battle the Trump administration over cases of immigration, abortion, LGBTQ equality, and voting rights. We watch the lawyers in action as they meet with desperate clients and plot legal strategies for critical cases including one that goes to the Supreme […]
Greta Thunberg became famous for her viral videos confronting UN leaders over climate change. Swedish filmmaker Nathan Grossman offers a unique view of Greta’s personal history starting in August 2018 when she was 15 years old and scarcely known. As her notoriety rises, we watch Greta adapt to being both flattered and scorned by world […]
2020 SHORT LIST: EDITING AWARD This eye-opening look at American democracy and political division follows a group of high school boys as they create a mock government at an annual civics program hosted by the American Legion in Austin, Texas. Separated into two fictional political parties, the charismatic young subjects have a week to nominate candidates, […]
Journalist Maria Ressa of the Philippines was named one of Time magazine’s Persons of the Year. Her online news site, Rappler combines the words “rap” and “ripple” for its truth seeking under the authoritarian regime of President Rodrigo Duterte. Filmmaker Ramona Diaz profiles Ressa as she faces government persecution in a series of legal actions […]
In this masterful, immersive cinema vérité, executive produced by Joaquin Phoenix, filmmaker Victor Kossakovsky invites the audience to share the experiences of several animals on a farm, including a pair of cows, a magnificent one-legged chicken, and its titular star, a sow who has just given birth to an inquisitive litter of piglets. Shot in […]
The white Alba truffle is the most expensive–and elusive–ingredient in the world. Found only in the forests of Northern Italy, its secrets have been guarded for generations by a select group of older Italian men and their canine companions: the truffle hunters. Filmmakers Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw enter their singular world, discovering truly one-of-a-kind […]
2020 SHORT LIST: SPECIAL JURY RECOGNITION FOR TRUTH TO POWER Journalism’s role of exposing corruption has rarely been as dramatically portrayed as in Collective. Filmmaker Alexander Nanau follows a team of Romanian reporters in real time as they doggedly uncover a deadly scandal that reaches the highest levels of government. Like a real-life version of […]
MLK/FBI performs the vital task of examining FBI director J. Edgar Hoover’s relentless campaign of surveillance and harassment against Martin Luther King, Jr. Today, when King is celebrated across political spectrums as a moral hero, it’s jolting to confront the years when federal agents targeted him as a villain. Inspired by the work of historian […]
2020 SHORT LIST: CINEMATOGRAPHY AWARD Filmed in Wuhan, China by an independent crew, 76 Days covers the length of the city’s lockdown for COVID-19. The film’s suspenseful pacing and otherworldly imagery make it feel like a science-fiction thriller. The heroes are the front-line hospital workers who still manage to find humanity and humor even while […]