Great Oscar-contending documentaries and the SCAD Savannah Film Festival: for more than a decade now, the two have been virtually synonymous thanks to the ‘Docs to Watch’ panel, which is presented by The Hollywood Reporter, moderated by yours truly and brings to the nation’s largest university-run film festival the directors of 10 of the year’s finest nonfiction features.
Indeed, over the 10 years that the panel was held prior to this year, 21 of the 97 docs that were featured went on to nominations for the best documentary feature Oscar, and eight of those ultimately won that award: 2015’s Amy, 2016’s O.J.: Made in America, 2017’s Icarus, 2018’s Free Solo, 2019’s American Factory, 2021’s Summer of Soul, 2022’s Navalny and 2023’s 20 Days in Mariupol.
This year’s gathering took place on Oct. 30 at SCAD’s Lucas Theatre as part of the fest’s 27th edition, and, as you can see for yourself by checking out the video above, featured:
- On behalf of Picturehouse’s Porcelain War, a portrait of married artists in present-day Ukraine whose lives are upended by the Russian invasion, the co-director, with Slava Leontyev, Brendan Bellomo
- On behalf of Warner Bros.’ Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, in which the life, work and tragic accident of a beloved movie star are examined by family and friends 20 years after his death, the co-director, with Ian Bonhôte, Peter Ettedgui
- On behalf of Netflix’s Will & Harper, which follows the comedic actor Will Ferrell and Harper Steele, an old friend from Saturday Night Live who recently came out as a trans woman, on a road trip across America, the director Josh Greenbaum
- On behalf of MTV Documentary Films’ Black Box Diaries, in which a filmmaker investigates her own sexual assault by a powerful man in Japan, aiming to bring the perpetrator to justice and to create social change, the director Shiori Ito
- On behalf of Level Ground’s Union, a chronicle of the David vs. Goliath effort of labor organizers and employees at an Amazon warehouse in Staten Island to form a union, the co-director, with Brett Story, Stephen Maing
- On behalf of Fourth Act Films’ Hollywoodgate, which documents the Taliban as they occupy a former CIA base in Kabul in the year after America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, the director Ibrahim Nash’at
- On behalf of Focus Features’ Piece by Piece, a chronicle of the rollercoaster life and career of musician Pharrell Williams as told through LEGO animation, an Oscar winner for 2013’s Twenty Feet from Stardom, Morgan Neville
- On behalf of National Geographic Documentary Films’ Sugarcane, a deeply personal excavation of the long-buried history of wrongdoing at an Indian residential school in Canada, the co-director, with Emily Kassie, Julian Brave NoiseCat
- On behalf of Netflix’s Daughters, a film about a program that helps incarcerated men to reconnect with their daughters, and four fathers and daughters who are impacted by it, the co-director, with Natalie Rae, Angela Patton
- And on behalf of Greenwich Films’ Carville: Winning Is Everything, Stupid, a profile of the legendary Democratic political strategist who led the effort to convince Pres. Biden to not seek re-election, the director Matt Tyrnauer
Over the course of the conversation, the filmmakers discussed the origin and often unexpected evolution of their 2024 documentaries. (Several had never made a film before!) Five who co-directed their films spoke about those collaborations. Several whose films are political discussed the challenges of finding distribution deals for such projects in the current climate. And each spoke about the ways — often quite profound — in which their doc’s subject(s) and/or they have been impacted by the making and/or release of their film.
Check it out!
