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DOC NYC Announces Short List Titles for 2024 Fest

Short List offers reliable forecast for Oscar race

5 mins read

Fifteen documentary features get a boost in the Oscar race as DOC NYC unveiled today the selections for its annual Short List programme. The list offers many of the presumed frontrunners, including the daddy-daughter dance doc Daughters, directed by Natalie Rae and Angela Patton; residential school exposé Sugarcane, directed by Emily Kassie and Julian Brave NoiseCat, and transamerican road movie Will & Harper, directed by Josh Greenbaum. But it also makes some bold choices with critically acclaimed docs that are self-releasing after struggling to land distribution, like Palestinian-Israeli unity feat No Other Land, directed by Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, and Hamdan Ballal; and labour rights saga Union, directed by Brett Story and Stephen Maing. The selections follow the main slate announced last week.

DOC NYC’s Short List is increasingly one of the most reliable bellwethers in the Oscar race. The list often overlaps considerably with the Oscar shortlist of 15 titles release in December. Moreover, this list arguably offers a refreshing counterpoint to this year’s Critics Choice Documentary Awards nominations, which deliver a relatively anemic slate of celebrity biopics and streaming titles.

Also making some traction with the shortlist selections are Lucy Walker’s thrilling adventure Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa and Alexis Bloom’s damning political profile The Bibi Files, which screened as works-in-progress at the 2023 and 2024 Toronto International Film Festivals, respectively, to great acclaim. The list also includes Mati Diop’s Golden Bear winner Dahomey—something of an unconventional bet as an art film that runs an hour and change, although Senegal is betting on it, too, as its submission for Best International Feature.

Sundance award winners comprise a fair slate of the contenders. In addition to Daughters, Sugarcane, and Union, which all scored prizes in Park City, the Short List includes U.S. Grand Jury Prize winner Porcelain War, directed by Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev; World Cinema Directing winner The Remarkable Life of Ibelin, directed by Benjamin Ree; and special award winners Frida, directed by Carla Gutierrez; Soundtrack to a Coup d’État, directed by Simon Grimonprez; and Union. One of this year’s l’Œil d’Or winners at Cannes, Raoul Peck’s Ernest Cole: Lost and Found makes the cut, too. Rounding out the list, meanwhile, is an inspired choice for the hidden gem Queendom, directed by Agniia Galdanova, which has won several prizes worldwide for its portrait of a drag queen fighting for LGBTQ+ rights in Russia.

The selection marks a Short List that notably leans into topical political issues and pressing human rights stories—something that resonated with Oscar voters last year over some celebrity bios that pundits perceived as shoo-ins. Even the docs listed here that could be pegged as biographies or celebrity tales generally defy convention, like the animated Frida, or situate an individual’s story within a larger conversation about civil rights, like Will & Harper and Ernest Cole: Lost and Found. This year’s Short List also offers a noticeably global scope, which also reflects the increasing international spectrum of nominees in the doc categories. Three of this year’s selections—Union, Sugarcane, and Daughters—boast Canadian directors, while two-time Oscar winner Ben Proudfoot makes the shortlist for short docs.

Last year’s list included four of the five Oscar nominees, including eventual winner 20 Days in Mariupol, while Proudfoot’s The Last Repair Shop made shorts Short List before going on to win the Oscar.

 

Short List: Features

Black Box Diaries
Dahomey
Daughters
Ernest Cole: Lost and Found
Frida
Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa
No Other Land
Porcelain War
Queendom
Soundtrack to a Coup d’État
Sugarcane
The Bibi Files
The Remarkable Life of Ibelin
Union
Will & Harper

 

Short List: Shorts

All Things Metal
Denial
Eternal Father
Goodbye, Morganza
I Am Ready, Warden
Incident
Instruments of a Beating Heart
Julia’s Stepping Stones
Motorcycle Mary
The Only Girl in the Orchestra
Seat 31: Zooey Zephyr
A Swim Lesson
The Turnaround
Until He’s Back

 

Winners’ Circle

A New Kind of Wilderness
Hollywoodgate
Nocturnes
Patrice: The Movie
The Last of the Sea Women
 
DOC NYC runs Nov. 13 to Dec. 1.

Pat Mullen is the publisher of POV Magazine. He holds a Master’s in Film Studies from Carleton University where his research focused on adaptation and Canadian cinema. Pat has also contributed to outlets including The Canadian Encyclopedia, Paste, That Shelf, Sharp, Xtra, and Complex. He is the vice president of the Toronto Film Critics Association and an international voter for the Golden Globe Awards.

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