An email from AJ Schnack reveals that he, in partnership with the Toronto Film Festival’s Thom Powers and Indiepix.net, are launching a new range of awards for “excellence in non-fiction filmmaking.”

Prompted in part by general disappointment in the doc community over the Oscar shortlist, a panel of twelve film festival directors have produced a short list of 15 films, which will be eligible for nominations in nine categories. There are four films common to both the Oscar shortlist and this new list: Lake of Fire, No End in Sight, Sicko and Taxi to the Dark Side. The nominations, and the official name of the awards, will be announced at a press conference at the Sundance Film Festival, which you can be sure the Spouties will try to attend. In the meantime, you can peruse the panel, the shortlist, the categories, and AJ’s blog post about how the awards came to be.