Six films will compete in the feature documentary category for the Producers Guild of America (PGA) Awards. The PGA nominations announced today reflect the open nature of this year’s awards race, as the field includes a mix of films with passionate support that didn’t quite find representation among other precursors—Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa and Porcelain War—along with some under-the-radar contenders like Gaucho Gaucho, Mediha, and We Will Dance Again. Rounding out the category is Super/Man, which swept the Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards.
Mountain Queen landed on DOC NYC’s Short List earlier this season while director Lucy Walker scored the festival’s Robert Drew Award. The film is a deeply inspiring portrait of mountaineer Lhakpa Sherpa, who works at Whole Foods to provide for her family while holding the world record for most summits up Mount Everest by a woman (ten!). Mountain Queen was picked up by Netflix out of the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. Its producers are Dalia Burde, Charlie Corwin, Christopher Newman, Michael D. Ratner, Miranda Sherman, and Angela Shin.
Meanwhile, Porcelain War also made DOC NYC’s Short List and won the Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Documentary at Sundance earlier this year. The doc by Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev offers a collaborative representation of artists on the front lines of the war in Ukraine. It is distributed by Picturehouse, with the Impact Series handling in Canada. Producers for Porcelain War are Aniela Sidorska, Paula DuPré Pesmen, Camilla Mazzaferro, and Olivia Ahnemann.
Super/Man from directors Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui uses a biographical take on actor Christopher Reeve to present a disability rights saga. Amazon Studios snapped that one up in one of Sundance’s biggest sales. Bonhôte serves as producer with Robert Ford and Lizzie Gillett.
Nominee Gaucho Gaucho from directors Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw’s elegiac snapshot of Argentine cowboys. Despite an acclaimed Sundance premiere and the popularity of the directors’ The Truffle Hunters, Gaucho Gaucho was among the festival favourites that struggled to find a home and recently debuted on the streaming site Jolt. Dweck and Kershaw serve as producers alongside Christos V. Konstantakopoulos, Cameron O’Reilly, Matthew Perniciaro, and Grazka Taylor.
Mediha, meanwhile, won the U.S. Grand Jury Prize at DOC NYC 2023 and has built passionate support on the festival circuit. Its producers are Fahrinisa Campana, Annelise Mecca, Stephen Nemeth, Hasan Oswald, and Alexander Spiess. The doc recently picked up To Kill a Tiger Oscar nominee Nisha Pahuja among its executive producers with others including Jason Loftus (Eternal Spring) and Oscar winner Emma Thompson have come aboard as it seeks distribution. Finally, We Will Dance Again is director Yari Movez’s story of the Supernova Music Festival Massacre, which took place on Oct. 7, 2023. It is produced by Michael Weits and is streaming on Paramount+.
Exact credits for the nominations will be released shortly.
