At a reception here in Park City on Sunday afternoon, filmmakers AJ Schnack and Margaret Brown were joined by Indiepix’s Danielle DiGiacomo and the Toronto Film Festival’s Thom Powers to announce the nominees for a new batch of awards honoring excellence in non-fiction filmmaking: the Cinema Eyes. Schnack, who previously announced the formation of the awards on his blog, explained that the name was inspired by Dziga Vertov’s Kino Eye. The gang then announced the nominees for 8 juried awards, plus an audience award, which the public will be able to vote for at Indiepix.net. You can take a look at the full nominee list here.

Based on sheer volume of nominations, it looks like the big winners here are Manda Bala, Into Great Silence, and Zoo––all films that made a great impression at Sundance in 2006 and 2007, all of which failed to land on the Academy’s short list. This would indicate that the nominations have already succeeded in representing the point of view of the doc community, and as a corrective to the widely disappointing Academy finalists. The awards themselves will be handed out on March 18 at the IFC Center in New York.