I voted for the Cinema Eye Honors for nonfiction film this year, so I was hardly an impartial attendee at last night’s show at the Times Center, where Waltz with Bashir took four awards, prompting the sole representative of the film in attendance, art director David Polonsky, to quip, “They’re giving me trouble at the airport later.” Because of my role in helping to select the winners, I’ll refrain from commenting on the awards themselves (indieWIRE has the full list of winners). As for the show itself, it’s come a long way from last year’s somewhat scrappy installment at the IFC Center. In 2009, the Cinema Eye team gracefully expanded to a much larger venue (and packed the house) while producing, overall, a much tighter program.

The highlight for me was co-host AJ Schnack’s opening monologue, in which the filmmaker/blogger/co-founder of the awards mockingly but lovingly indulged in classic awards show moments, from the grand entrance to the musical medley to the industry-specific joke. After a short filmed intro featuring Schnack and Order of Myths director Margaret Brown, Schnack and Yance Ford (series producer for P.O.V.) emerged from the wings wearing the Mardi Gras crowns and robes of the subjects in Brown’s film (later, after changing back into her standard menswear, Ford said, “I’ve never done drag before. AJ Schnack is the only man who could get me into a dress.”) Schnack went on to riff on names and themes that could very well have illicited a “huh?” from an audience not in the documentary world know (after claiming the move to the Times Center was part of “the Disneyfication of documentary,” Schnack promised that “Sheila nevins will be here any second in a Cruella DeVille costume”) — and then mocked himself for being too insidery, admitting that those who get his jokes and those who read indieWIRE are the exact same audience. It’s not a populist niche, for sure, but that makes sense for an event that’s about the documentary community saluting its own — if not, as co-host/founder Thom Powers put it in his opening statement, “vindication” against the backers, broadcasters, distributors, higher-profile awards bodies and critics who used their powers to exclude or ghettoize the nominated films.

One suggestion for next year’s show: both Cinema Eyes have included a director’s roundtable, in which a handful of nominees take the stage to take questions from Powers. This year’s roundtable took place in the second half of the show, before presentation of the final three awards. To my mind, the roundtable is a great idea in theory, but in practice it seems to weigh down the show, especially when slotted so far into it. Once you’re past the hour mark of a less-than-two hour show (especially one where drinks are served before and after but not during), watches and cellphones are being glanced at with great frequency, and asking the audience to pay attention to a conversation of substance may be asking too much. Moving the roudtable up earlier in the program — maybe even before any awards are given –– might help, but I also might like to see the format rethought to engage the audience more directly, either by taking questions Q & A style or finding some other way to make the conversation interactive. If most of the most passionate about the previous year’s documentary films are in the room, it might be interesting to take greater advantage of that.