398 new invitations to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences went out today. Among the invitees for membership is Canadian filmmaker Daniel Cross. A co-founder and president of Montreal’s EyeSteelFilm, Cross is a veteran of Canada’s documentary scene with a history of activist work and documentaries that broke-out internationally thanks to innovations in co-production. Cross’s docs as a director include The Street (1997), S.P.I.T: Squeegee Punks in Traffic (2001), and I Am the Blues (2015). The latter won two Canadian Screen Awards including Best Documentary Feature. As a producer and executive producer, his films include Up the Yangtze (2007), Angry Inuk (2016), and Last Train Home (2009), which made the Oscar shortlist.
Other names on the list include producer Melanie Miller (an Oscar winner for Navalny this year), along with this year’s nominees Maxim Arbugaev (Haulout), Evgenia Arbugaeva (Haulout), Simon Lereng Wilmont (A House Made of Splinters), Joshua Seftel (Stranger at the Gate), and Shaunak Sen (All that Breathes). Notably absent, however, is Navalny director Daniel Roher.
The list of invitations for membership to the Academy’s documentary branch went to:
Maxim Arbugaev – Haulout, Voy
Evgenia Arbugaeva – Haulout, A Hawk as Big as a Horse
Paul Barnes – Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson, The Thin Blue Line
Mark Becker – Art and Craft, Romántico
Alan Berliner – First Cousin Once Removed, Wide Awake
Tze Woon Chan – Blue Island, Yellowing
Sonya Childress – Strong Island, The Interrupters
Lauren Cioffi – Civil, Becoming
Erika Cohn – Belly of the Beast, The Judge
Patrick Creadon – I.O.U.S.A., Wordplay
Daniel Cross – I Am the Blues, Last Train Home
Ally Derks
Andrés Di Tella – Private Fiction, 327 Notebooks
Lauren Domino – Time, Alone
Lindsey Dryden – Unrest, Lost and Sound
Katja Esson – Poetry of Resilience, Ferry Tales
Violet Du Feng – Hidden Letters, Maineland
Jennifer Fox – My Reincarnation, Beirut: The Last Home Movie
Sonia Kennebeck – Enemies of the State, National Bird
Teddy Leifer – All That Breathes, Rough Aunties
Simon Lereng Wilmont – A House Made of Splinters, The Distant Barking of Dogs
Petr Lom – Myanmar Diaries, Angels on Diamond Street
Melanie Miller – Navalny, Stutz
Julia Nottingham – Be Water, Trophy
Ilja Roomans – Master of Light, Turn Your Body to the Sun
Nancy Schwartzman – Victim/Suspect, Roll Red Roll
Joshua Seftel – Stranger at the Gate, The Many Sad Fates of Mr. Toledano
Shaunak Sen – All That Breathes, Cities of Sleep
Daniel Sivan – Camp Confidential: America’s Secret Nazis, The Oslo Diaries
Chris Smith – Sr., American Movie
Corinne van Egeraat – Myanmar Diaries, Burma Storybook
Tyler H. Walk – Welcome to Chechnya, How to Survive a Plague
Eden Wurmfeld – The Big Scary S Word, Sunset Story
Debra Zimmerman – Why Women Stay
