Porcelain War Photo: Courtesy of Sundance Institute |
There's a forthright quality to the choices in this year's Oscar documentary shortlist, with challenging themes and controversial politics tackled upfront in a way we haven't always seen from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). Relatively few cater to the comfort narratives of which Hollywood is fond, and there's some low budget indie work getting well-deserved attention.
Curiously, Kneecap, which has done really well elsewhere and dominated the BIFAs, didn't make this shortlist but does appear as Ireland's submission on the Best International Feature Film Shortlist.
The final set of nominations will be narrowed down on 17 January.
The full shortlist:
- The Bibi Files
- Black Box Diaries
- Dahomey
- Daughters
- Eno
- Frida
- Hollywoodgate
- No Other Land
- Porcelain War
- Queendom
- The Remarkable Life Of Ibelin
- Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat
- Sugarcane
- Union
- Will & Harper