The Aretha Franklin documentary “Amazing Grace,” the moon-mission chronicle “Apollo 11” and the first film from Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company, “American Factory,” have made the short list for the International Documentary Association’s 2019 IDA Documentary Awards, the IDA announced on Thursday.
The announcement narrows the field to 30 feature films and 21 shorts that will move on to a second round of voting.
The IDA’s short list of 30 feature films contains 10 films that were on DOC NYC’s recent 15-film list of the year’s likeliest nonfiction awards contenders: “American Factory,” “The Apollo,” “Apollo 11,” “The Biggest Little Farm,” “The Cave,” “Diego Maradona,” “The Edge of Democracy,” “For Sama,” “Honeyland” and “One Child Nation.”
Additional films on the IDA’s list include “Amazing Grace,” “Aquarela,” “Cunningham,” “Sea of Shadows” and “Hail Satan?”
The films that made the DOC NYC list but did not end up on the IDA’s list are “Ask Dr. Ruth,” “The Elephant Queen,” “The Great Hack,” “The Kingmaker” and “Knock Down the House.”
Other high-profile documentaries bypassed for the IDA Awards include “Maiden,” “The Black Godfather,” “David Crosby: Remember My Name,” “5B,” “Mike Wallace Is Here” and “Where’s My Roy Cohn?”
The list is global in scope, with 11 films from outside the U.S. and nine that are U.S./international co-productions.
Shortlisted short films include “Lost and Found” from Oscar-winning director Orlando von Einsiedel (“The White Helmets,” “Virunga”) and “Easter Snap” from Oscar-nominated RaMell Ross (“Hale County This Morning, This Evening”). Other shorts on the list include “In the Absence,” “Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl),” “The Nightcrawlers” and “St. Louis Superman.”
Last year’s IDA features short list contained 12 of the 15 films that ended up on the Oscars’ short list, and four of the five nominees (missing only “RBG”). The IDA’s short-doc short list contained six of the 10 films shortlisted by the Academy, and three of the five Oscar nominees, not including the winner, “Period. End of Sentence.”
The short lists were compiled from 375 eligible doc features and 153 shorts by screening committees of filmmaking and industry professionals assembled by the IDA. Additional nominating committees will choose up to 10 nominees in each category, and the nominations will be announced on Wednesday, Oct. 23.
The IDA Documentary Awards will take place on Saturday, Dec. 9 on the Paramount Pictures lot.
The short lists:
Features
“Advocate” (Israel, Canada, Switzerland), Rachel Leah Jones and Philippe Bellaiche
“Amazing Grace” (USA), Alan Elliot, Tirrell D. Whittley, Sabrina V. Owens, Joe Boyd, Rob Johnson, Chiemi Karasawa, Spike Lee, Angie Seegers and Joseph Woolf
“American Factory” (USA), Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert
“The Apollo” (USA), Roger Ross Williams
“Apollo 11” (USA), Todd Douglas Miller
“Aquarela” (UK, Germany, Denmark), Victor Kossakovsky
“The Biggest Little Farm” (USA), John Chester
“Black Mother” (USA), Khalik Allah
“The Cave” (USA, Syria, Denmark), Feras Fayyad
“Cunningham” (USA, Germany), Alla Kovgan
“Dark Suns” (Canada) Julien Elie
“Diego Maradona” (UK), Asif Kapadia
“EARTH” (Austria), Nikolaus Geyrhalter
“The Edge of Democracy” (USA, Brazil), Petra Costa
“The Feeling of Being Watched” (USA), Assia Boundaoui
“For Sama” (UK, Syria), Waad al-Kateab, Edward Watts
“Hail Satan?” (USA, Sweden), Penny Lane
“Honeyland” (Macedonia), Tamara Kotevska
“The Hottest August” (USA, Canada) Brett Story
“Kabul, City in the Wind” (Netherlands, Afghanistan, Germany), Aboozar Amini
“Lemebel” (Chile, Colombia), Joanna Reposi Garibaldi
“Midnight Family” (Mexico), Luke Lorentzen
“Midnight Traveler” (USA, UK, Qatar), Hassan Fazili
“One Child Nation” (USA), Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang
“Our Time Machine” (China), Yang Sun and S. Leo Chiang
“Present. Perfect.” (USA, Hong Kong), Shengze Zhu
“The Proposal” (USA), Jill Magid
“Roll Red Roll” (USA) Nancy Schwartzman
“Sea of Shadows” (USA, Austria), Richard Ladkani
“This Is Not a Movie” (Germany, Canada) Yung Chang
Shorts
“After Maria” (USA), Nadia Hallgren
“All Inclusive” (Switzerland), Corina Schwingruber Ilić
“America” (USA), Garrett Bradley
“Black to Techno” (USA), Jenn Nkiru
“Easter Snap” (USA), RaMell Ross
“In the Absence” (USA, Korea), Yi Seung-Jun.
“La Bala de Sandoval” (Ecuador), Jean-Jacques Martinod
“Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (if you’re a girl)” (UK, USA, Afghanistan), Carol Dysinger
“Lost and Found” (USA, Myanmar), Orlando von Einsiedel
“The Love Bugs” (USA), Allison Otto and Maria Clinton
“A Love Song for Latasha” (USA), Sophia Nahli Allison
“Marielle and Monica” (Brazil, UK), Fabio Erdos
“The Nightcrawlers” (USA, Philippines), Alexander Mora.
“Sam and the Plant Next Door” (UK), Omer Sam
“Scenes from a Dry City” (USA), Simon Wood and Francois Verster
“The Separated” (USA), Jeremy Raff
“Show Me the Way” (USA), Kate Kunath
“St. Louis Superman” (USA), Smriti Mundhra and Sami Khan
“30 for 30 Shorts: Mack Wrestles” (USA), Taylor Hess and Erin Sanger
“The Unconditional” (USA), Dave Adams
“Valley of the Rulers” (Serbia, Israel), Efim Graboy