While only five films will compete for the best documentary Oscar after nominations are announced next week, many more were celebrated last night at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens during the seventh annual Cinema Eye Honors, which recognize the finest non-fiction accomplishments of the year.
Two acclaimed documentaries from 2013 capped the night, with Joshua Oppenheimer’s “The Act of Killing” winning the Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking and Sarah Polley nabbing Outstanding Achievement in Direction for “Stories We Tell.” However, the biggest winner of the evening was unquestionably Zachary Heinzerling’s “Cutie and the Boxer,” the Sundance-acclaimed portrait of a New York artist and his committed wife, which won three prizes: Outstanding Debut for Heinzerling, Outstanding Graphics and Animation for production company Art Jail and Outstanding Original Score for Yasuaki Shimizu.
Highlights from the evening included a lengthy introduction by Michael Moore, who noted the welcome lack of competition among the communal filmmakers in the room, an appearance by editor Thelma Schoonmaker (who compared editing Martin Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street” to working on documentary films), and a Legacy Award presented to Barbara Kopple for her 1976 film “Harlan County USA.”
One of the more touching moments of the evening arrived early on, when Cinema Eye co-founder AJ Schnack paid tribute to filmmaker Laura Poitras, who has been unable to work in the United States due to her role in documenting Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks last year. Schnack played a clip from an acceptance speech Poitras gave at the 2011 Cinema Eye Honors, after her documentary “The Oath” won a prize, in which the filmmaker called for all the documentarians in the room to pledge to go to jail before allowing institutions to censure their work.
Another significant moment arrived when “Gasland” and “Gasland II” director Josh Fox received the Cinema Eye’s “Hell Yeah” prize for his activism. Noting that his attendance at the ceremony meant that he had to miss an Albany protest established to encourage Governor Andrew Cuomo to ban fracking in New York state, Fox asked the entire audience to stand up and shout “Hell yeah!” as a means of endorsing the anti-fraking message, while the filmmaker took a photo he intended to send to both Governor Cuomo and President Barack Obama.
For a full list of last night’s winners, head to the next page.
The following is a complete list of last night’s winners.
Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking
The Act of Killing
Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer
Produced by Signe Byrge Sørensen
Presented by Steve James
Outstanding Achievement in Direction
Sarah Polley
Stories We Tell
Presented by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady
Outstanding Achievement in Editing
Nels Bangerter
Let the Fire Burn
Presented by Thelma Schoonmaker
Audience Choice Prize
Sound City
Directed by Dave Grohl
Presented by John Flansburgh and Robin “Goldie” Goldwasser
Outstanding Achievement in Production
Signe Byrge Sørensen
The Act of Killing
Presented by Jennifer Fox and Ross Kauffman
Outstanding Nonfiction Film for Television
The Crash Reel
Directed by Lucy Walker
Produced by Julian Cautherley and Lucy Walker
For HBO Documentary Films: Executive Producer Sheila Nevins and Supervising Producer Sara Bernstein
Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Short Filmmaking
A Story for the Modlins
Directed by Sergio Oksman
Presented by Kirsten Johnson and Darius Marder
Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography
Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel
Leviathan
Presented by Kirsten Johnson and Darius Marder
Heterodox Award
Post Tenebras Lux
Directed by Carlos Reygadas
Presented by Jeremy Saulnier and Angela Tucker
Outstanding Achievement in an Original Music Score
Yasuaki Shimizu
Cutie and the Boxer
Presented by Jeff Reichert and Farihah Zaman
Spotlight Award
The Last Station
Directed by Cristian Soto and Catalina Vergara
Presented by Jeff Reichert and Farihah Zaman
Outstanding Achievement in Graphic Design and Animation
Art Jail
Cutie and the Boxer
Presented by Chris Hegedus and Jehane Noujaim
Outstanding Achievement in a Debut Feature Film
Zachary Heinzerling
Cutie and the Boxer
Presented by Chris Hegedus and Jehane Noujaim
Legacy Award
Harlan County, USA
Directed and Produced by Barbara Kopple
Presented by Kristi Jacobson
Hell Yeah Prize
Josh Fox
Gasland and Gasland, Part 2
Presented by AJ Schnack
Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
