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Most Oscar documentary nominees launch at Sundance. There are exceptions, like winners \u201cCitizenfour,\u201d \u201cFree Solo,\u201d and \u201cMy Octopus Teacher,\u201d but it remains the festival of choice for non-fiction films.<\/p>\n
A Sundance award doesn\u2019t hurt, either: The 2022 documentary Oscar winner, Questlove\u2019s \u201cSummer of Soul,\u201d began its journey as a 2021 Sundance double winner with an Audience Award and Grand Jury Prize. This year, the Oscar nominees include \u201cNavalny\u201d (U.S. Documentary audience and Festival Favorite award), \u201cFire of Love\u201d (editing award), \u201cAll that Breathes,\u201d (Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema Documentary), and \u201cHouse Made of Splinters\u201d (World Cinema Documentary Directing Award).<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s Sundance crop, sampled by those in Park City theaters as well as online, is just as impressive. Jury prizes didn\u2019t always go to the buzziest titles, but Sundance award-winners get a lift toward getting seen and often acquired.<\/p>\n
Sheila Nevins\u2019 MTV Documentary Films grabbed Chilean filmmaker Maite Alberdi\u2019s \u201cThe Eternal Memory,\u201d a heart-tugging story about a loving wife helping her intellectual husband battle Alzheimer\u2019s, which took home the World Cinema Documentary Jury Prize. The distributor plans a theatrical release and an awards push for the documentary from \u201cThe Mole Agent\u201d director.<\/p>\n
Winning the U.S. Documentary Grand Jury Prize was Joseph Brewster and Mich\u00e8le Stephenson\u2019s \u201cGoing to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project,\u201d which uses the poet\u2019s words to observe decades of U.S. history. Produced by Brewster and Stephenson, Taraji P. Henson serves as an executive producer and provides voiceover narration.<\/p>\n
Harrowing Ukraine cinema verite \u201c20 Days in Mariupol\u201d (Frontline\/PBS) won the World Cinema Documentary Audience Award, while Luke Lorentzen\u2019s pandemic hospital story \u201cA Still Small Voice,\u201d focused on a spiritual counselor coping with unimaginable grief, took home the directing Award for U.S. Documentary. Earning rave reviews was Madeleine Gavin\u2019s \u201cBeyond Utopia,\u201d which deployed hidden cameras to tell the story of North Korean defectors and won the U.S. Documentary Audience Award. It\u2019s still seeking distribution.<\/p>\n
Magnolia has been active, picking up Lisa Cortes\u2019 popular musical biodoc \u201cLittle Richard: I Am Everything\u201d (CNN\/HBO Max) early in the festival, which did not pick up any awards, as well as worldwide rights to black-and-white \u201cKokomo City,\u201d the directorial debut of Grammy-nominated producer, singer, and trans performer D. Smith (\u201cLove & Hip Hop Atlanta\u201d). The film, which tracks four Black transgender sex workers in Atlanta and New York City, won the NEXT Innovator Award. Lena Waithe is among the film\u2019s executive producers; it next plays the Berlinale.<\/p>\n
Also not winning prizes but sure to lure audiences was Apple TV+ release \u201cStill: A Michael J. Fox Story,\u201d Davis Guggenheim\u2019s first documentary feature in seven years, which follows the \u201cBack to the Future\u201d icon from his start in Canada through his Hollywood career and Parkinson\u2019s diagnosis at age 29.<\/p>\n
Sundance 2021 delivered more feature Oscar contenders than usual, including eventual Oscar-winners \u201cMinari,\u201d \u201cThe Father,\u201d and \u201cPromising Young Woman. \u201d That feat did not repeat in 2022: Many of the festival\u2019s most popular films, from Searchlight\/Hulu pickup \u201cFresh\u201d to Grand Jury prize-winner \u201cNanny,\u201d were genre fare. The only Sundance narrative feature in the 2023 Oscar race is South African filmmaker Oliver Hermanus\u2019 tearjerker \u201cLiving,\u201d adapted by Oscar-nominated novelist-screenwriter Kazuo Ishiguro from Akira Kurosawa\u2019s 1952 classic \u201cIkiru,\u201d and starring Oscar-nominated master thespian Bill Nighy.<\/p>\n
A big buy does not necessarily lead to Oscar nominations. Writer-director-actor Cooper Raiff\u2019s Audience Award winner \u201cCha Cha Real Smooth\u201d starring Dakota Johnson was scooped up by AppleTV+ for $15 million \u2014 $10 million less than the previous year\u2019s big Sundance buy \u201cCODA,\u201d which went on to win the Best Picture Oscar. Raiff\u2019s scruffy family saga did not follow the hard-to-replicate \u201cCODA\u201d path.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s likeliest Oscar contenders are not breakout director Chloe Domont\u2019s hugely commercial and sexy thriller \u201cFair Play,\u201d which Netflix landed after a bidding war for $20 million, nor John Carney\u2019s \u201cFlora and Son,\u201d a musical crowdpleaser starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt that AppleTV+ purchased for $20 million. Nick Lieberman and Molly Gordon\u2019s \u201cTheater Camp,\u201d which Searchlight grabbed for $8 million, is quirkily charming, but also not Oscar fare.<\/p>\n
Sony Pictures Classics acquired writer-director Angus MacLachlan\u2019s small-scale \u201cA Little Prayer,\u201d a well-reviewed family drama starring David Strathairn, which the distributor could save for a fall re-introduction if SPC thinks it\u2019s awards-ready. While Focus Features produced Dramatic Jury Prize winner \u201cA Thousand and One,\u201d the feature debut of Sundance Lab alumnus A.V. Rockwell, the distributor releases the mother-son drama starring musician Teyana Taylor on March 31. That\u2019s not considered prime time for an awards contender.<\/p>\n
More on the Oscar mark is playwright-turned-filmmaker Celine Song\u2019s \u201cPast Lives,\u201d an autofiction love triangle about a Korean-American woman with a white partner who re-engages with an old lover from Korea. After a rapturous critical and audience reception at Sundance, A24 is sending the film to build more buzz at the Berlinale. An awards push is inevitable.<\/p>\n
And Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal earned raves for his surprising, athletic, entertaining, and moving performance as a luchador exotico in documentarian Roger Ross Williams\u2019 feature debut \u201cCassandro.\u201d Amazon could push this movie forward in the Oscar race.<\/p>\n
And finally, Jonathan Majors could prove an acting contender for his transformative, moving role as a struggling body builder in \u201cMagazine Dreams,\u201d which received the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Creative Vision. (It went to the creative team led by director Elijah Bynum.) Much will depend on who buys the film, which will be an intense, tough sit for many audiences. But as the muscled \u201cCreed III\u201d star heads into the Marvel Extended Universe, there\u2019s no question the world is his oyster.<\/p>\n
View this article at IndieWire<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Sundance 2023 Oscar Contenders: Jonathan Majors, \u2018Past Lives,\u2019 and Lots of Docs: Most Oscar documentary nominees launch at Sundance. There are exceptions, like winners \u201cCitizenfour,\u201d \u201cFree Solo,\u201d and \u201cMy Octopus Teacher,\u201d but it remains the festival of choice for non-fiction films. A Sundance award doesn\u2019t hurt, either: The 2022 documentary Oscar winner, Questlove\u2019s \u201cSummer
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