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.

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The shortlist has been announced for the 2009 Cinema Eye Honors. The list includes a number of titles that many felt were unjustifiably snubbed from the Oscars shortlist, some based on qualification quibbles, including Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, My Winnipeg, The Order of Myths, Stranded: I’ve Come From A Plane That Crashed Into The Mountain, and Waltz With Bashir. Omitted: Dear Zachary, a number of Oscar shortlisted titles including I.O.U.S.A., and each of the top five highest grossing non-fiction films of 2008, including Religulous.

I’ve pasted the full shortlist after the jump with links back to previous coverage of the films on SpoutBlog. Though I haven’t personally seen all of these, between everyone on the Spout team we’ve previously covered all but two.

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Let’s talk documentaries. First up, an interview with AJ Schnack, founder of the Cinema Eye Honors, a new annual awards ceremony honoring the craft of non-fiction filmmaking, a genre often judged more on its subject matter than its artistry. Next up, an interview Jason Kohn, director of Manda Bala, the winner of this year’s top Cinema Eye prize. Kohn talks about weaving together the film’s disparate elements, searching for the line between good and evil, and crafting a “non-fiction science fiction film”.

 

 FilmCouch 63 [30:24m]: Play Now | Download

FilmCouch 63

BUTTERKNIFE 8: Smelly Elly

Yance Ford, a producer for PBS’s documentary series P.O.V., has a long consideration of Tuesday night’s Cinema Eye Honors at the P.O.V. blog. Though Ford has much praise for the project as a whole, she takes umbrage with one portion of Thom Powers’ opening remarks, and it happens to be one section of the evening that irked me, as well. Over to Yance:

I know Thom Powers to be a thoughtful, passionate programmer and a great filmmaker in his own right. But his opening remarks included a remark that I found troubling.He said that “distributors don’t get it, critics don’t get it and the general public doesn’t get it. We wanted to fill [this auditorium] with people who get it.” I’ll be the first to agree that independent documentary does not get the recognition it deserves, but I don’t think that the problem is the fact that the general public doesn’t “get it.” The problem is that the general public doesn’t get to see it.

Ford goes on to make the case that “as long as the documentary community prioritizes theatrical release and festival runs over broadcast, the public will continue to miss a large and dynamic body of work,” which could be construed as being a bit self-serving coming from the producer of a broadcast documentary program. But I think she’s right to point out that “the general public” hardly deserves blame for not supporting films that get little to no publicity, which are reviewed in only a fraction of publications. The average moviegoer would have to do a good deal of detective work to know that 80% of the films nominated for a Cinema Eye even existed. Isn’t that why the Cinema Eyes exist in the first place?

Whether intentionally or not (and I would assume probably not), Powers is basically making the same argument that Lou Lumenick made in the most hateable quote in that Hollywood Reporter story that everyone’s mad about: the New York Post critic claimed that it’s not his responsibility to review smaller films because “The only complaints we’ve gotten (on not running some reviews) are from publicists and distributors…Not a single one from readers.” In no other market sector would the consumer be blamed for not demanding a product that they didn’t know was available.

Tonight’s the night documentary fans have been waiting for for almost exactly two months: the first ever Cinema Eye Honors for excellence in non-fiction filmmaking will be awarded tonight at the IFC Center in New York City. I will be there, and since my live-Twittering of last month’s Oscar party was such a success with my millions of fans (well, okay––maybe just with Paul), I will be reporting back from the festivities in real time via 140-character, text messaged-updates. You can subscribe to my Twitter feed to get the updates on your phone, IM or computer, or just keep refreshing this page––the badge above will update every time I do. For more info on the Cinema Eyes, check out co-organizer AJ Schnack’s blog, and IndiePix.net.

UPDATE: I’ve taken down the Twitter badge and posted a full transcript of the live blog after the jump.

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