Davis Guggenheim's 'An Inconvenient Truth,' which won the Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary.
FEATURE DOCUMENTARY NOMINEES
Deliver Us From Evil
Director/Producer/Writer: Amy Berg
Producers: Frank Donner, Hermas Lassalle
Cinematographers: Jacob Kusk, Jens Schosser
Editor: Matthew Cooke
Composers: Mick Harvey, Joseph Arthur
Disarming Films, Lionsgate
Deliver Us From Evil is the story of Oliver O'Grady--the most notorious pedophile priest in the modern history of the Catholic Church--and an investigation into how he was allowed to forge a trail of destruction across northern California under the knowing eye of the church hierarchy for over 20 years.
AMY BERG has produced documentary segments for CNN Investigations and the CBS News program 30 Minutes of Special Assignment. For her work at CBS News, she earned Emmy Awards in 2003 and 2004. In 2005, Berg launched Disarming Films to produce long-form documentaries for theatrical release. She is currently working on her second documentary entitled This Is Not America.
FRANK DONNER has amassed extensive production and post-production credits through his work and consultation on hundreds of film and television projects. His recent feature Between screened in competition at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. Deliver Us From Evil is his first documentary feature. Donner earned his degree in film and television at Cal State University Northridge, while studying acting with Stella Adler. At Anderson Video, on the Universal Studios lot, he was instrumental in overseeing all post-production aspects of independent feature production. During his stint at Universal, Donner wrote and produced two half-hour sitcom specs as well as his first feature film, Pot Luck People. In 1995, he joined Ascent Media as vice president of production. In 2002, he moved to Advanced Digital Services Hollywood as president of production. He is currently president of Elektrofilm Digital Studios.
*An Inconvenient Truth (winner)
Director/Executive Producer/Cinematographer: Davis Guggenheim
Producers: Laurie David, Lawrence David, Scott Z. Burns
Executive Producers: Jeff Skoll, Diane Weyermann, Ricky StraussJeff Ivers
Cinematographer: Bob Richman
Editor: Jay Cassidy
Composer: Michael Brook
A Lawrence Bender/Laurie David Production, Paramount Classics, Participant Productions
An Inconvenient Truth offers a passionate and inspirational look at one man's commitment to expose the myths and misconceptions that surround global warming, and inspire actions to prevent it. That man is former US Vice President Al Gore, who, in the wake of defeat in the 2000 election, re-set the course of his life to focus on an all-out effort to help save the planet from irrevocable change. In this eye-opening and poignant portrait of Gore and his "traveling global warming show," he is funny, engaging, open and downright on fire about getting out to ordinary citizens the surprisingly stirring truth about what he calls our "planetary emergency" before it's too late.
DAVIS GUGGENHEIM was an executive producer on Training Day and has directed the feature film Gossip, both for Warner Bros. His television directing credits include episodes of Deadwood, Numb3rs, The Shield, Alias, 24, NYPD Blue, ER and Party of Five. His documentary credits include The First Year and Teach, both of which documented the challenging first year of several novice Los Angeles public school teachers. The First Year premiered on PBS in 2002 and received a Peabody Award and the Grand Jury Prize at the Full Frame Film Festival. Guggenheim's other documentary films include Norton Simon: A Man and His Art, produced for the Norton Simon Museum, and JFK and the Imprisoned Child, produced for the John F. Kennedy Library.
Iraq in Fragments
Director/Producer/Cinematographer/Editor/Composer: James Longley
Producer: John Sinno
Editors: Billy McMillin, Fiona Otway
Typecast Pictures, Typecast Releasing, HBO Documentary Films
Iraq in Fragments illuminates post-war Iraq in three acts, building a vivid picture of a country pulled in different directions by religion and ethnicity. Filmed in vérité style, with no scripted narrative, the film powerfully explores the lives of ordinary Iraqis: people whose thoughts, beliefs, aspirations and concerns are at once personal and illustrative of larger issues in Iraq today.
JAMES LONGLEY was born in Oregon in 1972. He studied film at the University of Rochester and Wesleyan University, and the All-Russian Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) in Moscow. His student documentary Portrait of Boy with Dog, about a boy in a Moscow orphanage, earned a Student Academy Award in 1994. After working as a film projectionist in Washington State, an English language teacher in Siberia, a newspaper copy editor in Moscow and a Web designer in New York City, Longley traveled to Palestine in 2001 to make his first feature documentary, Gaza Strip. The film, which takes an intimate look at the lives and views of ordinary Palestinians in Israeli-occupied Gaza, screened to critical acclaim at a number of international film festivals and in several US theaters. In 2002, Longley traveled to Iraq to begin pre-production work on Iraq in Fragments.
JOHN SINNO was born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon, where he acquired a BA in business administration from the American University of Beirut. He moved to the United States in 1984, continuing his graduate education in Southern California. There he obtained an MA in communication theory as well as an MFA in film production. In 1990, Sinno founded and operated Video Press, an Orange County-based video production company. In 1993, he joined Arab Film Distribution in Seattle, becoming president of the company in 1998. Since its inception, AFD has acquired hundreds of feature and documentary films from and about the Arab world. Sinno founded Typecast Films in 2005, which produced Iraq in Fragments. Sinno also serves as producer and curator for the Seattle Arab and Iranian Film Festival.
Jesus Camp
Directors/Producers: Heidi Ewing, Rachel Grady
Executive Producers: Nancy Dubuc, Molly Thompson
Cinematographers: Mira Chang, Jenna Rosher
Editor: Enat Sidi
Composer: Force Theory
A&E Indie Films, Magnolia Pictures
A growing number of Evangelical Christians believe there is a revival underway whereby young Christians must take up the leadership of the religious right. Jesus Camp follows Levi, Rachael, Tory and a number of other young children to Pastor Becky Fisher's "Kids on Fire" summer camp in Devil's Lake, North Dakota, where kids as young as six years old are taught to become dedicated Christian soldiers in "God's Army." The film is a first-ever look into an intense training ground that recruits born-again Christian children to become an active part of America's political future.
As the co-owner of the New York-based production company Loki Films, HEIDI EWING has taken on a wide range of subjects that include the inner working of Scientology, ritualistic body piercing in Sri Lanka and the labyrinth that is the criminal justice system in the Bronx. Previously, she delved into the dramatic world of Cuban politics with Dissident, a film about the struggle of Havana-based Nobel Prize nominee Oswaldo Paya, that was made clandestinely and has been shown around the world. She recently co-directed the award-winning The Boys of Baraka.
The co-director of The Boys of Baraka, RACHEL GRADY is a private investigator turned filmmaker. She has produced and directed numerous nonfiction films for Discovery Channel, A&E and Britain's Channel 4. She has directed several films that focus on mental illness, including Mad Justice, a vérité documentary that looks at the troubling fate of mentally ill parolees, and Ward 2 West, shot on location at the Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Hospital on New York's famed Ward's Island. She also acted as series producer for TX, an eight-part series for VH1 filmed entirely in drug rehab. Grady is the co-founder of Loki Films.
My Country, My Country
Director/Producer/Cinematographer/Editor: Laura Poitras
Producer: Jocelyn Glatzer
Editor: Erez Laufer
Composer: Kadhum Al Sahir
Praxis Films, Zeitgeist Films, ITVS, POV/American Documentary, PBS
The state of democracy, both in Iraq and in the United States, is the focus of My Country, My Country, a journey into the heart of war-ravaged Iraq in the months leading up to the January 2005 elections. Working and traveling alone in Iraq during a time when few Western journalists ventured from their compounds and bodyguards, filmmaker Laurie Poitras captures the war and the elections from the inside. Her protagonist is Dr. Riyadh, an Iraqi doctor, father of six, devout Sunni Muslim--and political candidate in Iraq's largest Sunni political party, the Iraqi Islamic Party. An outspoken critic of the US occupation, he is equally passionate about building democracy in Iraq.
LAURA POITRAS received a Peabody Award for her last documentary, Flag Wars (2003), which she co-directed, produced and photographed. A film about gentrification in Columbus, Ohio, Flag Wars received numerous other awards, including Best Documentary at the 2003 South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival and Seattle Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, and the Filmmaker Award at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. Flag Wars launched the 2003 POV series on PBS and was nominated for both a 2004 Independent Spirit Award and a 2004 Emmy Award. Poitras' other films include Oh Say Can You See... (2003) and Exact Fantasy (1995). She resides in New York City.
JOCELYN GLATZER has directed, produced and edited numerous documentary films including The Flute Player, about a survivor of Cambodia's genocide, which had its national broadcast premiere on POV in 2003, and won numerous awards, including an Audience Award for Documentary First Feature at SXSW (2003) and a CINE Golden Eagle Award. It was also an Emmy Award nominee for Outstanding Achievement in Arts and Cultural Programming. She directed and produced ART2000, about Hillary Rodham Clinton's most successful senatorial race fundraiser, has worked at Maysles Films and on two Emmy-nominated dance programs for PBS's Great Performances series. A former New Yorker, she now resides in Boston.
DOCUMENTARY--SHORT SUBJECT NOMINEES
*The Blood of Yingzhou District (winner)
Director: Ruby Yang
Producer: Thomas Lennon
Cinematographer: Qu Jiang Tao
Editors: Ruby Yang, Ma Man Chung
Composer: Brian Keane
The China AIDS Media Project, Thomas Lennon Films, Inc.
The Blood of Yingzhou District documents a year in the life of children in the remote villages of Anhui Province, China, who have lost their parents to AIDS. Traditional obligations to family and village collide with terror of the disease.
RUBY YANG, originally from Hong Kong, has explored a range of Asian-American themes as a director and editor, many of which are Emmy Award-winning documentaries. She is now based in Beijing, directing public service announcements and documentaries for Chinese television and international audiences. Yang is the recipient of numerous awards and grants, including a Kaiser Media Fellow in 2004 for developing her work on HIV/AIDS.
THOMAS LENNON was series producer and lead writer on Becoming American: The Chinese Experience, Bill Moyers' acclaimed series on PBS. He recently directed a PBS series on the Supreme Court, which aired in January. He has won national Emmys and George Foster Peabody Awards (twice each), a duPont-Columbia Award and an Academy Award nomination.
Recycled Life
Director/Editor/Cinematographer/Writer: Leslie Iwerks
Producer/Writer: Mike Glad
Iwerks/Glad, LLC
For over 60 years, the Guatemala City Garbage Dump has been home to the "guajeros," who recycle the city's trash. Children have been born and raised there. Parents and grandparents have survived there, and thousands of families have managed to thrive in the largest, most toxic and dangerous area in all of Central America. For decades, the guajeros were shunned by society and ignored by the government, until a disastrous event in January 2005 forever changed the face of this landfill and the dignified people who call it home. Through this compelling story, the filmmakers have captured the beauty, dignity and life-threatening drama that permeates this vast wasteland of garbage as generations of families have remained trapped in an ongoing cycle of poverty.
LESLIE IWERKS is an award-winning director/producer and third-generation filmmaker from a two-time Oscar-winning family. Iwerks has directed and produced numerous projects for Disney and Pixar, including an upcoming feature documentary about Pixar Animation Studios, which documents the pioneering company. Her award-winning theatrical documentary for Walt Disney Pictures, The Hand Behind the Mouse--The Ub Iwerks Story, chronicles the life of Iwerks' grandfather, Ub Iwerks, the original designer of Mickey Mouse. Leslie Iwerks has served as a juror and panelist for many film festivals domestically and internationally, and her work has been shown theatrically, on television and cable stations around the world. She has been featured in numerous newspaper, radio and television spots around the world.
MIKE GLAD has spent over 35 years traveling to Third World countries photographing the lives of indigenous peoples. Glad's interest in documentary filmmaking began during his many years traveling throughout Mexico and Central America (particularly Guatemala). In 2000, he first partnered with filmmaker Leslie Iwerks to finance and produce The Spirit of the Maya, about the modern Maya culture.
Rehearsing a Dream
Directors/Producers: Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon
Cinematographer: Buddy Squires
Editor: Nancy Baker
Simon & Goodman Picture Company
Support for the arts in America may be dwindling, but talent in our high schools isn't. Every year a group of the country's most gifted 17-year-old performing and visual artists--singled out among thousands of their peers--share a week of dreams as they learn from mentors like Mikhail Baryshnikov, Vanessa Williams, Jacques d'Amboise, Michael Tilson Thomas...and from each other. For seven transformative days, the passionate young artists exult in the support, encouragement and attention they have earned.
KAREN GOODMAN and KIRK SIMON are a wife-and-husband filmmaking team whose documentaries have garnered three Academy Award nominations, three Emmys and the duPont-Columbia Award for Independent Programming. Their documentaries have been broadcast nationally on PBS and HBO, and screened at festivals around the world, including the New York Film Festival, Sundance, New Directors/New Films, London, Berlin, Montreal and St. Petersburg. Both Simon and Goodman are active voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. They have served as consultants to the National Endowment for the Humanities Media Program, on the Documentary Screening Committee for the Academy Awards and as judges for the Emmy Awards and the duPont-Columbia Broadcast Journalism Award.
Two Hands
Director/Producer: Nathaniel Kahn
Producer: Susan Rose Behr
Executive Producers: Darrell Friedman, Douglas Herst, Carolen Herst
Cinematographer: Don Lenzer
Editor: Brad Fuller
Crazy Boat Pictures, Ltd.
Two Hands tells the near mythic story of Leon Fleischer, one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century, who, at the height of his career in 1965, lost the ability to play with his right hand. After a period of deep despair, Fleischer began a 35-year quest to find a cure for his mysterious ailment--reinventing himself along the way as a teacher, conductor and performer of music written for the left hand alone. Several years ago, with the help of a brilliant doctor and an experimental treatment, Fleischer's struggle finally came to an end and his right hand was released from purgatory. Now, at nearly 80 years old, he is back playing with both hands in concert halls all over the world.
NATHANIEL KAHN writes, directs and produces both nonfiction and fiction films. His recent documentary My Architect, chronicling his five-year odyssey to know his father, architect Louis I. Kahn, was nominated for an Academy Award, an Independent Spirit Award and an Emmy Award, and earned for Kahn the 2004 Directors Guild of America Award for Kahn for Outstanding Direction of a Documentary. In addition to My Architect, Kahn recently directed a hybrid fiction/nonfiction film for Universal about filmmaker and fellow Philadelphian M. Night Shyamalan. The film aired on the Sci-Fi Channel. Kahn also wrote the Emmy-nominated documentary Wilderness:The Last Stand, which aired on PBS, and My Father's Garden, about American's farming crisis, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and aired on the Sundance Channel.
SUSAN ROSE BEHR's first feature-length documentary film was My Architect, which, in addition to the aforementioned honors, won the Grierson Award in the UK for best foreign feature-length documentary. Behr began her career in the theater, studying acting at the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia and producing original works with the American Experience Theater, which she co-founded. Many of her productions involved the use of film and video elements, which led directly to her interest in filmmaking and nonfiction work in particular. Behr is co-founder with Nathaniel Kahn of Crazy Boat Pictures and is currently working on several other documentary film projects, including one about the remarkable humanitarian work of the late singer John Denver and another about a world-renowned art collection and its eccentric founder.