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National Geographic’s “Sugarcane,” a film about abuse and missing children at an Indigenous boarding school in Canada, leads this year’s nominations for the Cinema Eye Honors awards with six. Cinema Eye recognizes excellence in the artistry and craft of nonfiction filmmaking. “Sugarcane” will face off against “Black Box Diaries,” “Dahomey,” “Daughters,” “Look Into My Eyes,” “No Other Land,” and “Soundtrack to Coup d’Etat” for Best Feature. See the full list of nominees below.

In 2023, four of the five eventual Academy Award nominated Documentary Feature films were nominated by Ceh earlier in the season, including the Oscar winner “20 Days in Mariupol.” Last year’s Ceh winner “32 Sounds” failed to earn a nomination from the Academy. The last two films to win the Oscar without first being recognized with a nomination by Ceh were “My Octopus Teacher” in 2020 and “Free Solo” in 2018.

Cinema Eye will return to...

Sugarcane, the Nat Geo documentary feature about abuse and forced separations in a Canadian Indigenous community, landed a field-leading six nominations for the Cinema Eye Honors, the organization, which celebrates nonfiction work made for big and small screens, announced on Thursday.

Among the noms for Sugarcane is one for best nonfiction feature, a category in which it will compete alongside Mubi’s Dahomey and the U.S.-distributor-less No Other Land, which both garnered five noms, and MTV Docs’ Black Box Diaries, Netflix’s Daughters, A24’s Look Into My Eyes and Kino Lorber’s Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat.

This is the first year in which the nominees for best nonfiction feature will include the entire creative team behind each doc — the directors, producers, editors, cinematographers, composers, sound designers, visual designers and significant on-screen participants.

The audience choice award, nominees for which were determined by more than 30,000 votes from nonfiction lovers around the world,...

The Canadian film “Sugarcane” continued its impressive awards-season streak on Thursday, leading all films in nominations for the 18th annual Cinema Eye Honors.

The film from Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie, which looks into cases of abuse and forced separation in an Indigenous community, received six nominations, including Outstanding Nonfiction Feature. Mati Diop’s “Dahomey” and Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal and Rachel Szor’s “No Other Land” received five nominations.

“Sugarcane” is now the only film of 2024 to be nominated in the top nonfiction category at the Cinema Eye Honors, Critics Choice Documentary Awards and Gotham Awards, and also to be included on the International Documentary Association’s IDA Documentary Awards long list and Doc NYC’s short list of likely awards contenders.

Nominees in the Outstanding Nonfiction Feature category were “Sugarcane,” “Dahomey,” “No Other Land,” “Black Box Diaries,” “Daughters,” “Look Into My Eyes” and “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat.

The Cinema Eye Honors, an Oscar bellwether that often predicts the Best Documentary Feature race, has unveiled its 2025 nominations.

Leading the pack is “Sugarcane,” Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie’s documentary about abuse in an Indian residential school in Canada. The film earned rave reviews out of Sundance, and here earned six nominations. It’s followed by two hits from the 2024 Berlin Film Festival: “Dahomey,” Mati Diop’s exploration of the artifacts of colonial Africa, and Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal and Rachel Szor’s Israel-Palestine conflict documentary “No Other Land,” which each received five nominations. Two portraits of major 20th-century artists, Carla Gutiérrez’s “Frida” and Gary Hustwit’s “Eno,” also received five nominations a piece.

The 18th annual Cinema Eye Honors will take place on Thursday, January 9 at the New York Academy of Medicine in East Harlem. Keep reading for a complete list of nominees.

Nonfiction...

The 15th annual Doc NYC festival unveiled the titles in its Short List sections, an early precursor lineup in advance of the Oscar nominations next January in the categories of Best Documentary Feature and Documentary Short.

America’s largest documentary festival, based in the Chelsea and Greenwich Village neighborhoods of New York City, launches on Nov. 13 with the opening night premiere of “Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story.”

The titles in the Short Lists include Benjamin Ree’s “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin,” Raoul Peck’s “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found,” Carla Gutiérrez’s “Frida,” Mati Diop’s “Dahomey” and “No Other Land,” directed by a four-person collective of Israeli and Palestinian artists.

Additional films, nearly all screening with filmmakers in person for Q&As, include “Will and Harper,” about the friendship between Will Ferrell and Harper Steele, “The Last of the Sea Women,” produced by Nobel Peace Prize winner...

“The Chosen” has cornered the American market for Biblical cities.

A historical drama about the life of Jesus, the series is a phenomenon partly because it constructs its first-century settings with such care. The sumptuous visuals deliver the sheen of prestige TV, which has helped garner over 200 million viewers, not to mention the attention of platforms as diverse as Hulu, Netflix, and Peacock. They’re all streaming at least part of the first three seasons, while Season 4 was screened in cinemas this spring in advance of its streaming debut June 2.

To maintain its production standards, the show has constructed a 1,200-acre backlot in Midlothian, Texas. It’s an impressive facility, at least judging by drone videos producers have released, but it doesn’t give “The Chosen” everything it needs. The series also films at a replica of ancient Jerusalem that’s part of a motion picture campus in Utah owned...

Chris Smith’s “Devo” will open the ninth edition of Chicago’s Doc10 documentary film festival on May 2.

The film, which premiered at Sundance 2024, charts the life of the art-movement-turned-band Devo from Akron, Ohio, through archival footage of the band and candid sit-down interviews with band members. Smith follows the band on their journey from Dadaist, Kent State radicals to unlikely icons of 1980s MTV. Currently celebrating their 50 years of De-Evolution Tour, Devo band members will join Doc10 in a live, virtual Q&a moderated by Wxrt’s Marty Lennartz.

Doc10, a four-day fest running May 2-5, features a selection of 10 documentaries making their Chicago premieres along with a package of 10 prestigious documentary shorts. The fest is hosted by Chicago Media Project, a company that has generated more than $8.5 million in funding for documentary projects. Cmp has directly supported over 150 films including “Icarus,” “Crip Camp” and most recently “Gaucho, Gaucho,...

Netflix has confirmed its acquisition of Daughters, winner of Sundance’s Festival Favorite and Audience Award: US Documentary awards.

‘Daughters’: Sundance Review

Angela Patton and Natalie Rae co-directed the film, which follows four young girls as they prepare for a Daddy Daughter Dance with their incarcerated fathers as part of a prison fatherhood programme in Washington, D.C.

Lisa Mazzotta, Rae, Justin Benoliel, Mindy Goldberg, Sam Bisbee, Kathryn Everett, Laura Choi Raycroft, and James Cunningham served as producers. Kerry Washington Patton, and Joel Edgerton are among the executive producers.

This marks the third Netflix buy out of Sundance after...

Natalie Rae and Angela Patton’s “Daughters,” an acclaimed documentary about a program that allows young girls to participate in a special dance with their incarcerated fathers, is finalizing a sale to Netflix. If the deal closes, it is expected to be in the seven-figure range. It was a competitive situation with at least three companies circling the picture.

“Daughters” premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award in Documentary Competition and was named overall Festival Favorite. The film took eight years to produce.

In a rave review in Variety, Lisa Kennedy praised “Daughters,” writing that the film adds “depth and dimension to stories of incarceration.” Kennedy added: “The film is rife with visually lyrical moments that connect viewers with the young ones’ sorrows, fears, insights and hopes. In the hands of the directors, cinematographer Michael Cambio Fernandez and editors Troy Lewis and Adelina Bichis,...

By Monday afternoon, the buzz hit Main Street: the Seinfelds have arrived at the Sundance Film Festival.

The superstar comedian accompanied his wife, Jessica Seinfeld, to Park City for the world premiere of her Sundance documentary Daughters, held just after noon Monday at the Ray Theatre. And what an event it proved to be. “Daughters received multiple standing ovations at our sold-out premiere today,” Jessica shared on Instagram Stories along with a video showing a packed crowd on its feet. The film marks the entrepreneur, author and philanthropist’s first feature film.

Daughters, directed by Angela Patton and Natalie Rae, focuses a lens on four young girls — Aubrey, Santana, Raziah and Ja’Ana — as they prep for a special daddy-daughter dance with their incarcerated fathers as part of a unique program in a Washington D.C. jail. Per Sundance literature, Daughters is a result of an eight-year doc journey for its filmmakers.

Exclusive: Actress Kerry Washington is boarding the Sundance documentary Daughters as an executive producer, joining a roster of EPs that includes fellow actor Joel Edgerton, and author-philanthropist Jessica Seinfeld, wife of comedian Jerry Seinfeld.

The film directed by Angela Patton and Natalie Rae focuses on four young girls as they prepare “for a special Daddy Daughter Dance with their incarcerated fathers, as part of a unique fatherhood program in a Washington, D.C., jail.” Daughters premieres in U.S. Documentary Competition on Monday.

‘Daughters’

“A moving lesson in empathy and forgiveness, Daughters is a result of an eight-year documentary journey that filmmaker Natalie Rae and Angela Patton, an activist advocating for ‘at-promise’ girls, embarked upon,” notes the Sundance program. “As Aubrey, Santana, Raziah, and Ja’Ana get ready for the special event, they speak candidly about their hopes, dreams, and disappointments. There is an innate wisdom and honesty to what...