“Jane,” “Chasing Coral,” “City of Ghosts” and “Cries From Syria” have been nominated as the best nonfiction film of 2017 by the Producers Guild of America, the PGA announced on Monday.
“Earth: One Amazing Day,” “Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower” and “The Newspaperman: The Life and Times of Ben Bradlee” were also nominated in the Outstanding Producer of Documentary Theatrical Motion Pictures category.
For the first time, the category was expanded from five to seven nominees.
The winner will be revealed at the Producers Guild Awards ceremony on Jan. 20, 2018 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.
The Producers Guild documentary category is among the most idiosyncratic of the documentary awards — and while the PGA’s best-picture nominations are typically a reliable Oscar indicator, its doc nominations are not.
Over the last five years, only seven of the 25 PGA doc nominees have gone on to receive Oscar nominations, without a single year in which more than two films were honored by both organizations.
In that time, though, three of the Producers Guild winners — “Searching for Sugar Man,” “Amy” and “O.J.: Made in America” — did go on to win the documentary-feature Oscar.
Of this year’s nominees, Matthew Heineman’s “City of Ghosts” and Evgeny Afineevsky’s “Cries From Syria,” both of which deal with the aftermath of the civil war in Syria, have done well in the year’s previous documentary awards and nominations. So has Brett Morgen’s Jane Goodall doc “Jane” and Jeff Orlowski’s climate-change film “Chasing Coral.”
The other nominees — “Earth: One Amazing Day,” “Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower” and “The Newspaperman: The Life and Times of Ben Bradlee” (which was not submitted to the Oscar race) — are unique to the Producers Guild in awards voting so far.
A record 170 nonfiction films were entered in the Oscar doc category this year.
Nominees in the PGA’s feature film and television categories will be announced on Jan. 5.
The nominees:
“Chasing Coral”
“City of Ghosts”
“Cries from Syria”
“Earth: One Amazing Day”
“Jane”
“Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower”
“The Newspaperman: The Life and Times of Ben Bradlee”
Oscar 2018: Documentary Filmmaker Portraits, From Agnes Varda to Jim Carrey (Exclusive Photos)
Eight nonfiction filmmakers pose for the Race Begins issue of TheWrap Oscar Magazine.
JR and Agnes Varda, "Faces Places"
(Photographed by Shayan Asgharnia for TheWrap) "We have used the phrase 'friendship at first sight,' and that's really what happened. We met and said, 'We have to do something together. What could we do? It should be images and sound, like cinema." --Varda
Colin Hanks, "Eagles of Death Metal: Nos Amis"
(Photographed by Samantha Annis for TheWrap) "Initially, I resisted the idea. I don't necessarily like to stick a camera in my friends' faces after the toughest time in their lives, a terrorist attack on the other side of the world. But we realized there was an opportunity to document this and help everybody move on."
Ceyda Torun, "Kedi"
(Photographed by Corina Marie for TheWrap) "We went to Istanbul to do a straightforward nature documentary by filming cats and taking to people. But we realized that what people had to say about cats was profound and poetic, and that's the fastest way to strike up intimate conversations with strangers."
Jim Carrey, "Jim and Andy: The Great Beyond-Featuring a Very Special, Contractually Obligated Mention of Tony Clifton" (Directed by Chris Smith)
(Photographed by Corina Marie for TheWrap) "It's behind the scenes like has never been seen behind the scenes. And also, the character being played [in "Man in the Moon"] took over the movie and played it from the apparent grave. We all had the experience of Andy [Kaufman] being back."
John Ridley, "Let it Fall: Los Angeles 1982-1992"
(Photographed by Matt Sayles for TheWrap) "Los Angeles is not Ferguson, not Baltimore. These events deserve singular examination. My desire is to use complicated storytelling to upend the audience expectations, so they walk away and think, 'What do I feel about what I thought I knew?"
Brett Morgen, "Jane"
(Photographed by Megan Mack for TheWrap) "I think that Jane Goodall is a story for our time, and yet one that transcends our time. It's not just the story of a scientist, but the story of a woman having to overcome the structural opposition of her time to fulfill and achieve her dreams."
Evgeny Afineefsky, "Cries from Syria"
(Photographed by Jana Cruder for TheWrap) "Syrian people were bringing me footage because they knew I had a voice and could tell their story to the world. They're fighting for freedom of speech, fighting for democracy, for all these human rights that we've never had."
Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing, "One of Us"
(Photographed by Corina Marie for TheWrap) "We followed the journey of a few Hassidic Jews who were exploring the world outside their very cloistered, insular community -- and what's interesting is that there's a tenderness and homesickness for what they are leaving behind, because it cannot be replaced by secular American life." -- Grady
1 of 9
TheWrap Oscar Magazine: Eight nonfiction filmmakers pose for the Race Begins issue
Eight nonfiction filmmakers pose for the Race Begins issue of TheWrap Oscar Magazine.
