Oscar documentary favorites are starting to emerge as critics and other arbiters begin to announce their nominees and shortlists, bringing some clarity to a wide-open awards race. Four of the documentary features gaining traction: American Doctor, To Hold a Mountain, Closure and Once Upon a Time in Harlem.
Filmmakers behind those distinguished productions assembled at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival in Arkansas last week for HSDFF’s inaugural roundtable of Oscar contenders, an event held in partnership with Deadline. On the latest edition of Deadline’s Doc Talk podcast, we share the conversation with you, recorded live with an audience at the Arlington Hotel in Hot Springs.
To Hold a Mountain, the Sundance Grand Jury Award winner filmed in Montenegro, was represented on the panel by co-director Biljana Tutorov. She told us why she, co-director Petar Glomazić and their protagonist Gara Jovanović became, in her words, “enemies of the state” while they were making the film.
Michał Marczak, who won the Golden Alexander at the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival in Greece for Closure, tells us how making the film unexpectedly helped him deal with postponed grief from losing his father when Michał was just 11.
American Doctor’s Poh Si Teng explains why one of her protagonists “ghosted” her at a key stage of production and how she managed to overcome that hurdle.
Once Upon a Time in Harlem producer Liani Greaves, who made the award-winning film with her father David Greaves, shares insights on their father-daughter cinematic collaboration and how they crafted the story from material shot in 1972 by William Greaves (David’s father and Liani’s grandfather). It’s the only documentary this year to screen at Sundance, Cannes, Telluride, TIFF and the New York Film Festival – a testament to the extraordinary reception for the film.
The filmmakers tell us what they value most about finding themselves so prominently in Oscar contention – and, candidly, what’s not so great. Constant worldwide travel – that would be one downside; another, for Marczak, has to do with promoting the film through social media. Teng poignantly speaks to her filmmaking colleagues in Gaza who cannot leave the occupied territory even as Palestinians continue to lose their lives to Israeli military attacks.
That’s on the new episode of Doc Talk hosted by Oscar winner John Ridley (12 Years a Slave, Shirley) and Matt Carey, Deadline’s senior documentary editor. The pod is a production of Deadline and Ridley’s Nō Studios.
Listen to the episode above or on major podcast platforms including Spotify, iHeart and Apple.