“Amy,” “The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution,” “Listen to Me Marlon,” “The Look of Silence,” “The Russian Woodpecker” and “What Happened, Miss Simone?” have been named the best documentaries of 2015 by the International Documentary Association, which has nominated those six films in the top category at the IDA Documentary Awards.
The competition will pit three docs about show-business personalities–Amy Winehouse in “Amy,” Marlon Brando in “Listen to Me Marlon” and Nina Simone in “What Happened, Miss Simone?”–against a trio of films that deal with the civil rights movement (“The Black Panthers”), the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster (“The Russian Woodpecker”) and the Indonesian genocide of the 1960s (“The Look of Silence,” a companion piece to Joshua Oppenheimer‘s Oscar-nominated “The Act of Killing”).
The nominations were made by an IDA jury after screening panels narrowed the field from more than 200 to to 25.
Among the high-profile non-fiction films not nominated are “The Hunting Ground,” “Cartel Land,” “The Wolfpack,” “Meet the Patels,” “Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck,” “Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine,” “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief,” “(T)ERROR” and Michael Moore‘s “Where To Invade Next.”
Several of those films were recognized in other areas, though. In the Creative Recognition categories, in which the IDA announces winners rather than nominees, “Montage of Heck” won for its editing and “Best of Enemies” for its music.”(T)ERROR” and “Best of Enemies” were nominated for the ABC News VideoSource Award, while “Cartel Land” director Matthew Heineman won the Courage Under Fire Award.
Other Creative Recognition winners include “The Russian Woodpecker” for cinematography and “Listen to Me Marlon” for writing.
Honorary award winners include Netflix’s Ted Sarandos, who will receive the Pioneer Award.
Last year, three of the five IDA nominees went on to receive Oscar nominations in the feature-documentary category, including “Citizenfour,” which won both awards. Typically, two or three of the films singled out by the IDA are also nominated by Oscar voters.
The IDA Awards are one of the two top honors in the documentary world. The New York-based Cinema Eye Honors will announce its nominees next week.
The IDA Awards will take place on Saturday, Dec. 5 on the Paramount Pictures lot. Comedian Tig Notaro will host.
The nominees:
Best Feature Award
“Amy”
Director: Asif Kapadia
Producer: James Gay-Rees
A24
“The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution”
Director: Stanley Nelson
Producer: Laurens Grant
PBS Distribution
“Listen to Me Marlon”
Director: Stevan Riley
Producer: John Battsek
Showtime Documentary Films
“The Look of Silence”
Director: Joshua Oppenheimer
Producer: Signe Byrge Sørensen
Drafthouse Films and Participant Media
“The Russian Woodpecker”
Director: Chad Gracia
Producer: Mike Lerner
FilmBuff
“What Happened, Miss Simone?”
Director: Liz Garbus
Netflix
Best Short Award
“Body Team 12”
Director: David Darg
Producer: Bryn Mooser
RYOT Films and Vulcan Productions
“Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah”
Director: Adam Benzine
HBO
“The Face of Ukraine: Casting Oksana Baiul”
Director: Kitty Green
Producer: Philippa Campey
KurzFilmAgentur Hamburg (Germany)
“Last Day of Freedom”
Directors: Dee Hibbert-Jones and Nomi Talisman
“Object”
Director: Paulina Skibińska
Munk Studio and Polish Filmmakers Association
Pare Lorentz Award
“How to Change the World”
Director: Jerry Rothwell
Creative Recognition Award Winners
Best Cinematography
“The Russian Woodpecker”
Cinematography by: Artem Ryzhykov
Best Editing
“Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck”
Edited by: Joe Beshenkovsky and Brett Morgen
Best Writing
“Listen to Me Marlon”
Written by: Stevan Riley
Co-Writer: Peter Ettedgui
Best Music
“Best of Enemies”
Original Score by: Jonathan Kirkscey
ABC News VideoSource Award
“(T)ERROR”
Directors: Lyric R. Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe
PBS, BBC
“Best of Enemies”
Directors: Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville
Magnolia Pictures
“Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll”
Director: John Pirozzi
Argot Pictures
“Night Will Fall”
Director: André Singer
HBO
“What Happened, Miss Simone?”
Director: Liz Garbus
Netflix
Best Curated Series Award
“30 for 30”
Executive Producers John Dahl and Connor Schell
ESPN
“America ReFramed”
Executive Producers: Chris Hastings and Simon Kilmurry
WORLD Channel
“Independent Lens”
Executive Producers: Sally Jo Fifer and Lois Vossen
ITVS, PBS
“POV”
Executive Producers: Simon Kilmurry and Chris White
POV, PBS
“Storyville”
Series Editor: Nick Fraser
Executive Producer: Kate Townsend
BBC TV, BBC World News
Best Limited Series Award
“Blood Brothers”
Executive Producers: Kees Schaap and Anja van Oostrom
Vara Television (The Netherlands)
“Hard Earned”
Executive Producers: Steve James, Justine Nagan, and Gordon Quinn
Al Jazeera America and Kartemquin Films
“The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst”
Executive Producer: Jason Blum
Co-Executive Producer: Zac Stuart-Pontier
Produced by: Andrew Jarecki and Marc Smerling
HBO
“Life Story”
Executive Producer: Mike Gunton
Discovery
“Rebel Architecture”
Executive Producer: Fiona Lawson-Baker
Al Jazeera English
Best Episodic Series Award
“Chef’s Table”
Executive Producers: David Gelb and Andrew Fried
Netflix
“Morgan Spurlock Inside Man”
Executive Producers: Jeremy Chilnick, Matthew Galkin, and Morgan Spurlock
CNN and Warrior Poets
“NOVA”
Senior Executive Producer: Paula Apsell
Deputy Executive Producer: Julia Cort
PBS
“The Seventies”
Executive Producers: Gary Goetzman, Tom Hanks, and Mark Herzog
CNN, Playtone, and Herzog & Company
“This is Life with Lisa Ling”
Executive Producers: Amy Bucher, Lisa Ling, and David Shadrack Smith
CNN and part2 pictures
Best Short Form Series Award
“Do Not Track”
Executive Producer: Hugues Sweeney
National Film Board of Canada, Upian, Arte, and BR
“Highrise: Universe Within”
Executive Producers: Anita Lee and Silva Basmajian
National Film Board of Canada
“The New York Times Op-Docs”
Executive Producer: Jason Spingarn-Koff
The New York Times
“POV Interactive Documentaries”
Executive Producers: Simon Kilmurry and Adnaan Wasey
POV and PBS
“WE THE ECONOMY: 20 Short Films You Can’t Afford to Miss”
Executive Producers: Paul G. Allen and Morgan Spurlock
Vulcan Productions and Cinelan
David L. Wolper Student Documentary Award
“The Archipelago”
Director: Benjamin Huguet
The National Film and Television School
“The Blue Wall”
Director: Michael Milano
University of California, Berkeley
“El Cacao”
Director: Michelle Aguilar
University of California Santa Cruz
“In Attla’s Tracks”
Director: Catharine Axley
Stanford University
“Looking at the Stars”
Director: Alexandre Peralta
University of Southern California
Career Achievement Award
Gordon Quinn
Pioneer Award
Ted Sarandos
Amicus Award
Tony Tabatznik and the Bertha Foundation
Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award sponsored by the Archibald Family Foundation
Lyric R. Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe
Courage Under Fire Award
Matthew Heineman