Can Social Issue Docs Make It to the Final Five?
Films about weighty subjects have fallen out of favor with mighty streamers but made a strong showing on the doc shortlist
THIS YEAR’S OSCAR feature documentary shortlist is made up of a group of 15 films that, by and large, big streamers aren’t interested in sharing with subscribers.
Six films that made it to the shortlist — Lea Glob’s “Apolonia, Apolonia,” Nancy Buirski’s “Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy,” Kaouther Ben Hania’s “Four Daughters,” Maciek Hamela’s “In the Rearview,” Luke Lorentzen’s “A Still Small Voice” and Sam Green’s “32 Sounds” — have theatrical distribution, but were not picked up by a major streaming company such as Netflix, Amazon or Apple TV+.
Mstyslav Chernov’s “20 Days in Mariupol,” one of a number of social-issue docs on this year’s shortlist, was theatrically released via PBS distribution and played on “Frontline” earlier this year. Roadside Attractions picked up Madeleine Gavin’s “Beyond Utopia,” about a family trying to defect from North Korea, for a limited release and the doc will soon screen on PBS’ “Independent Lens” and stream on Hulu as a special presentation. Nisha Pahuja is still seeking a distribution deal for “To Kill a Tiger,” a doc about rape in rural India.
The six remaining films have found a major streaming platform to call home, but not all of those platforms are shelling out the big bucks towards an Oscar campaign.
Netflix is seemingly willing to spend whatever it takes to make sure that both Matthew
Heineman (“American Symphony”) and Roger Ross Williams (“Stamped From the Beginning”) make it to the Dolby Theater on March 10. Apple TV+ execs don’t seem particularly worried about the cost of securing a nomination for Davis Guggenheim’s “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie” either.
Less clear: the size of the campaign budgets for HBO Documentaries’ “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project,” National Geographic’s “Bobi Wine: The People’s President” and MTV Documentary Films/paramount+’s “The Eternal Memory,” a Chilean doc about Alzheimer’s directed by Oscar nominee Maite Alberdi (“The Mole Agent”).
Deep pockets or not, every filmmaker wants eyeballs on his or her work. And while money certainly helps increase visibility, the teams behind all 15 shortlisted films have a plan in place to get Oscar documentary branch voters to come out between now and when nomination voting ends on Jan. 16.
“It’s hard because it’s a very short amount of time,” says “Beyond Utopia” exec producer Geralyn Dreyfous. “We don’t have any idea how many people have seen the film, so we are going to do the standard screenings. We got into Palm Springs Intl. Film Festival, so it will be at Palm Springs on opening day, and we are going to do a screening in San Francisco, New York and an event in L.A. The hope is that we reach as many people who were not able to see it in the first round as possible.”
In addition to “Beyond Utopia,” Dreyfous also executive produced Abramorama’s “32 Sounds,” about the phenomenon of sound. Dreyfous says that campaign money for both docs is being privately raised.
“Frontline” exec producer Raney Aronson-rath is also depending on private funding to spread the world about “20 Days in Mariupol,” about the Russian siege of the Ukrainian city. The doc will also screen at the Palms Springs film festival. “It’s a very serious film, so we are just hoping to campaign and encourage people to engage with a very serious subject that’s hard, but also really important,” says Aronson-rath. “Across the board, the goal is to get people to feel like they want to watch the film. That it would be something that would help them see the world in a different way.”
Buirski’s “Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy,” which was distributed theatrically by Zeitgeist Films in association with Kino Lorber, examines the people behind the dark and difficult 1969 film classic. “Desperate Souls” debuted at the Venice Film Festival in 2022, and Buirski unexpectedly died in August 2023. Producer Susan Margolin says that making the shortlist was elating and “really sad” because Buirski is “not here with us to take in this moment.”
“Desperate Souls” producer Simon Kilmurry explains that the campaign plan over the next few weeks resembles his plan for the film prior to the shortlist. “It’s been this grassroots-by-the-bootstraps thing where we are just trying to encourage people to see the movie,” Kilmurry says.
Even producers of “American Symphony,” this year’s frontrunner, are concerned about getting doc branch members in theaters. Netflix has already hosted numerous screenings of the film, about musician Jon Batiste and his wife navigating a health crisis, in the U.S. and abroad.
“I don’t take anything for granted,” says “American Symphony” producer Lauren Domino. “I just want people to see it. There is an amazing list of films on the shortlist so there’s no such thing as overconfidence. Our aim is to connect with people in person.”
Director Luke Lorentzen is also hoping Academy voters come out to see “A Still Small Voice,” which explores the world of hospital chaplains and the vital emotional and spiritual support they offer patients, families and staff. But he’s also hoping the shortlist attention for the film, for which Abramorama acquired North American theatrical rights in September, will lead to something more than just Oscar recognition.
“We still don’t have full distribution for the film,” he says. “So we are hoping that steps like this — giving the film a bigger push to get more fully out into the world — will help make a longer life for the film possible.”
The doc branch of the Academy is perhaps the most geo-diverse of all, so it’s not surprising that its voters have recognized projects from seven directors who are not from the U.S. They include Glob, the Danish director of “Apolonia, Apolonia,” Tunisian Ben Hania (“Four Daughters”) and Polish filmmaker Hamela (“In the Rearview”).
Hamela considers impact more important than awards for “In the Rearview,” which follows multiple generations of Ukrainian civilians forced to abandon their homes and rely on Hamela’s volunteer aid van to escape. Instead of spending money to get people to see his film, which premiered at Cannes, he is fundraising to support ongoing evacuation efforts in the Ukraine. “How much is it good to spend to reach a million viewers?” Hamela queries. “Is it a million dollars or is it $10 million? It’s hard to say. We try to be reasonable and so we just decided not to do any kind of ad spend during the campaign.”
On the Academy’s Board of Governors since 2016, Roger Ross Williams has made it his goal to make the Oscar docu branch a truly international group. “That was not an easy task,” he says. “It was challenging and difficult. People don’t like change. But the change is reflected in these nominees and I’m so proud of that.”
Willliams’ “Stamped From the Beginning” examines racism in America and while it has the backing of Netflix, in the last few years major streaming platforms that once snapped up social issue docs at Sundance and Toronto have largely shied away from taking on docs that tackle heavy subject matter.
Williams believes his film’s success on Netflix (“Stamped” was one of the Top 10 films during its first week on the platform) proves that audiences want more social issue documentaries. “For a film about racism to make it to the Top 10 of Netflix sends a huge message to Netflix and to the world that people are craving depth,” Williams says. “They are craving films like these.”
Nearly half of the docs on this year’s shortlist tackle social issues. They include “To Kill a Tiger,” “Four Daughters,” about a Tunisian mother whose two elder daughters joined ISIS, and “Bobi Wine: The People’s President,” about musician Wine’s attempt to topple the repressive regime of Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni.
Pahuja spent eight years making “To Kill a Tiger,” which charts the emotional journey of Ranjit, a farmer in India whose 13-yearold daughter is the victim of a gang rape. The filmmaker hopes its inclusion on the shortlist, and high-profile exec producers in Mindy Kaling and Dev Patel, will bring visibility to the project in the next few weeks and help her secure a distribution deal at long last.
“I felt very much that this was a film that could have an impact and could create tangible, measurable change in the world in terms of attitude and also legal repercussions,” says Pahuja. “But I also knew that it was a difficult subject, and it was subtitled, so I thought if I do not get people to come on board to help me amplify this, it’s not going to do the work that it can do. It’s not going to get out in the way that it needs to get out. So it was a really deliberate, delicate decision on my part to bring on support.”