“I personally feel it’s one of the most beautiful pieces of artistic cinema,” Michael Moore said of 5 Broken Cameras. “You don’t see this on the evening news. You don’t see Palestinians portrayed this way.”

Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s Detropia was the only film to win two awards, Outstanding Direction for the veteran NYC-duo, and Outstanding Original Score for Dial.81.  Continuing the theme of directing duos being recognized, Jason Tippet and Elizabeth Mims took honors for Outstanding Debut for their high school love triangle doc, Only the Young.

“Tonight, we’re here to honor The War Room,” said Moore upon presenting the film with the Legacy Award. “No Presidential candidate since, winner or loser, has allowed a documentary filmmaker inside. The War Room really stands as the seminal film and perhaps the last of its kind, reaching outside the documentary audience to new viewers.”

“When you have a film that’s honored like this after 20 years, it’s like a grandfather who’s suddenly sobered up and you can talk to him,” said D A Pennebaker.  ”You sort of forget when you were doing it, nobody wanted it. We were saved by people who just appeared as if by magic,” speaking of the film’s producers Wendy Ettinger and son Frazer Pennebaker, as well as the film’s distributor, the late Bingham Ray.

“I was thinking during  D A Pennebaker’s amazing talk tonight, we’re all standing on your shoulder and you know it, and we want to thank you,” said Detropia co-director Heidi Ewing upon accepting the Directing Award. “This year we leaned on all of you. The film has been shown in 105 cities and it’s because of you,” referring to their Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign that allowed them to self-distribute the film.

Jason Tippet said in acceptance with his Only the Young co-director Elizabeth Mims, “It feels really nice to be accepted in this community. Everybody’s been so supportive”

A slate of Oscar shortlisted films won in the other categories.  Dimitri Doganis received Outstanding Production for The Imposter, T. Woody Richman and Tyler H. Walk won for Outstanding Editing for How to Survive a Plague, Jeff Orlowski took Outstanding Cinematography for Chasing Ice and Oskar Gullstrand and Arvid Steen won the award for Outstanding Achievement in Graphic Design or Animation for Searching for Sugar Man.

Lee Hirsch’s Bully received the Cinema Eye Audience Choice Prize after a frenzied final 48 hours of voting that saw more than 4,500 cast votes online and via twitter.

“This is a great honor for us. A few years ago, we were really struggling with our film, and we came here, and you gave us a lot of strength,” said Bully director Lee Hirsch. “This film has had a really tremendous outreach campaign. The work done to get this film out there and bring it to audiences, that’s really everything. We’ve been able to bring the film to over 250,000 kids across America.”

In addition to its craft categories, Cinema Eye presented honors for Nonfiction Short Filmmaking, which went to Robert-Jan Lacombe’sGood-bye Mandima (Kwa Heri Mandima), the Spotlight Award, which was presented to Wojciech Staron for Argentinian Lesson and the Heterodox Award for Narrative Filmmaking, going to Jem Cohen’s Museum Hours, that recognizes a narrative film that imaginatively incorporates nonfiction strategies, content and/or modes of production.

In addition to 5 Broken Cameras, films vying for the top Nonfiction Feature prize included Ewing & Grady’s Detropia, Bart Layton’s The Imposter, Matthew Akers’ Marina Abramović The Artist is Present, Tippet and Mims’ Only the Young and Malik Bendjelloul’sSearching for Sugar Man.

This year’s Legacy Award was presented to the 1993 verite classic The War Room, which took viewers behind the scenes of the 1992 Bill Clinton campaign.  The Legacy Award is intended to honor classic films that inspire a new generation of filmmakers and embody the Cinema Eye mission: excellence in creative and artistic achievements in nonfiction films.  The Legacy Award celebrates the entire creative team behind the chosen film.  Directors Chris Hegedus and D A Pennebaker and producers Wendy Ettinger and Frazer Pennebaker accepted the award on behalf of the film.

The following is a complete list of Cinema Eye Honors winners for 2012:

Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking

5 Broken Cameras

Directed by Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi

Produced by Christine Camdessus, Serge Gordey, Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi

Presented by Chris Hegedus & D A Pennebaker

Outstanding Achievement in Direction

Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady

Detropia

Presented by Marshall Curry

Audience Choice Prize

Bully

Directed by Lee Hirsch

Presented by Andrea Meditch

Outstanding Achievement in Production

Dimitri Doganis

The Imposter

Presented by Daniel Chalfen and Judith Helfand

Outstanding Achievement in Editing

T. Woody Richman and Tyler H. Walk

How to Survive a Plague

Presented by Daniel Chalfen and Judith Helfand

Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography

Jeff Orlowski

Chasing Ice

Presented by Jennie Livingston and Darius Marder

Spotlight Award

Argentinian Lesson

Directed by Wojciech Staron

Presented by Jennie Livingston and Darius Marder

Heterodox Award

Museum Hours

Directed by Jem Cohen

Presented by Marie Therese Guirgis and Eugene Hernandez

Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Short Filmmaking

Goodbye Mandima (Kwa Heri Mandima)

Directed by Robert-Jan Lacombe

Presented by Laura Gabbert and Sam Green

Outstanding Achievement in an Original Music Score

Dial.81

Detropia

Presented by Laura Gabbert and Sam Green

Outstanding Achievement in Graphic Design and Animation

Oskar Gullstrand and Arvid Steen

Searching for Sugar Man

Presented by Jonathan Caouette and Susan Froemke

Outstanding Achievement in a Debut Feature Film

Jason Tippet and Elizabeth Mims

Only the Young

Presented by Jonathan Caouette and Susan Froemke

Legacy Award

The War Room

Directed by Chris Hegedus and D A Pennebaker

Produced by R.J. Cutler, Wendy Ettinger and Frazer Pennebaker

Presented by Michael Moore

This is the fourth year that Cinema Eye will present a Legacy Award, intended to honor classic films that inspire a new generation of filmmakers and embody the Cinema Eye mission: excellence in creative and artistic achievements in nonfiction films.  The Legacy Award celebrates the entire creative team behind the chosen film.  Previous Legacy Awards went to Ross McElwee’s Sherman’s March, the Maysles Brothers’ Grey Gardens and Frederick Wiseman’s Titicut Follies.

“For The War Room to be chosen for this momentous award and for it to be included in the company of the films of Maysles, Wiseman and McElwee, is a great honor,” said filmmakers Chris Hegedus and D A Pennebaker. “When we filmed with Carville and Stephanopoulos, history was taking place in front of our cameras, but it seemed cluttered and disorganized and we were never really sure of what was going on. But the incredible eye of our camera always saw the truth … it saw history.”

This year, for the first time, the Hot Docs Film Fesitval will partner with Cinema Eye to present this year’s Legacy Award.  Hot Docs will host a Cinema Eye Legacy Award screening of The War Room in Toronto during the 2013 edition of the festival, featuring a conversation with filmmakers Chris Hegedus and D A Pennebaker.  The dates of this year’s Hot Docs Film Festival are April 25 – May 5, 2013.

“The War Room is a seminal examination of political passion, a peek inside the presidential campaign spin machine that celebrates the pursuit of the democratic process,” said Cinema Eye’s Advisory Chair Andrea Meditch.  “It is also a testament to the work of a team to create great nonfiction art and we salute all of the filmmakers involved in bringing this classic verite film to the screen.”

The creative team behind The War Room includes producers R.J. Cutler, Wendy Ettinger and Fraser Pennebaker; co-cinematographers Nick Doob and Kevin Rafferty and co-editor Erez Laufer.

“We are thrilled to honor Chris and Penny with the Legacy Award for The War Room,” said filmmaker Laura Poitras, the Chair of the Cinema Eye Filmmaker Advisory Board. “Their body of work in non-fiction filmmaking is unparalleled.  They have been consistently ahead of the times, telling stories that capture the pulse of social movements.  They are also two of the most generous filmmakers we know, always finding time to share their knowledge with other filmmakers.  They are an inspiration to us all.”

“We are honored to be able to partner with Cinema Eye for the first time to present the Legacy Award screening of The War Room in Toronto,” said Charlotte Cook, Director of Programming at Hot Docs. “This film, even after twenty years, remains a benchmark in the portrayal of politics in documentary. It’s an absolute pleasure to honor this film, and celebrate the incredible work of Chris Hegedus and D A  Pennebaker and their team.”

About The War Room

The War Room was the name for Bill Clinton’s campaign center in Little Rock, Ark. Though the press wasn’t usually permitted inside this small warren of chaos, filmmakers D A Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, managed to secure partial access and shot nearly 35 hours of footage there. At the center ofThe War Room are the two men who guided Clinton’s ship from the beginning: James Carville, the fiery, charismatic, expletive-spewing Cajun who manages the campaign with a mixture of Southern charm and unrelenting passion; and George Stephanopoulos, the brilliant, handsome Rhodes Scholar who, as communications director, calmly but surely mobilizes his staff to take the presidency.

Hegedus and Pennebaker’s camera follow these two masterminds as they organize and execute strategies for such events as the Democratic National Convention, the debates with George Bush and H. Ross Perot, and the final, nail-biting days leading up to the election itself, when it seemed less and less certain whom the voters would choose. The War Room is a compelling and enlightening adventure story about two remarkable men, and about the monumental effort, determination and chutzpah that is required to conduct and win a political campaign in the modern age.

The War Room credits:

Directed by Chris Hegedus and D A Pennebaker

Produced by R. J. Cutler, Wendy Ettinger and Frazer Pennebaker

Edited by Chris Hegedus, Erez Laufer and D A Pennebaker

Cinematography by Nick Doob, D A Pennebaker and Kevin Rafferty

Sound by Chris Hegedus, David Dawkins and Judy Karp

About D A Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus

D A Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus form one of the most respected and unique teams of documentary filmmakers working today.  Known for their unintrusive, cinema verite style of filmmaking, they follow their subjects using handheld cameras and available light with minimal interruption.  The result is a candid portrait of a real-life drama in which the characters determine the action.

D A (Donn Alan) Pennebaker is widely regarded as one of the pioneers of cinema verite filmmaking. In the early sixties, Pennebaker and his colleague Richard Leacock developed one of the first fully portable 16mm synchronized camera and sound recording systems which revolutionized filmmaking and helped to create the immediate style of shooting so popular today. Pennebaker recently became the first documentary filmmaker to receive an Honorary Oscar for his lifetime body of work from the Motion Picture Academy.

In the 1960s, as a member of Drew Associates, Pennebaker collaborated on a number of seminal verite documents of the period, including Primary andCrisis. In 1967, Pennebaker directed and released the seminal film Don’t Look Back, which followed Bob Dylan’s last acoustic concert tour in England. The film broke box office records and is considered a classic of both documentary and rock filmmaking. Pennebaker’s next film, Monterey Pop, was a record of the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival that launched the careers of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix.

Since the mid-1970s, Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus have collaborated on a variety of subjects ranging from politics to music and most recently food. In 1992, the team followed Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign and produced The War Room, which received an Academy Award nomination and the D.W. Griffith Award for Best Documentary. Subsequent films include, Moon Over Broadway, following Carol Burnett’s Broadway debut, andStartup.com, which won Hegedus the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement. Their latest film, Kings of Pastry, follows three renowned pastry chefs in their pursuit of the prestigious Meilleurs Ouvriers de France title. The film has been broadcast around the world and was most recently shown on PBS and in cinemas in the US.

The five films nominated for the 2013 Heterodox Award are: Paolo and Vittorio Taviani’s Ceasar Must Die (Cesare deve morire), Craig Zobel’s Compliance, Jem Cohen’s Museum Hours, Pablo Larraín’s No, and Terence Nance’s An Oversimplification of Her Beauty.

These films illuminate the formal possibilities of nonfiction filmmaking while raising provocative questions about on-going documentary orthodoxy and the perceived boundaries between narrative and nonfiction filmmaking. Previous winners of the award were Matt Porterfield’s Putty Hill (2011) and Mike Mills’ Beginners (2012).

The 2013 Heterodox Award will be presented at the 6th Annual Cinema Eye Honors for Nonfiction Filmmaking on January 9 at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, New York.

“For the first two years, the Heterodox Award has felt like an exciting experiment,” said Cinema Eye Honors Co-Chair Esther Robinson. “Would there be enough films pushing through the barriers between fiction and non-fiction films to justify the award? Would the filmmaking community embrace this conversation? With the arrival of the third year, we can answer both questions with a resounding ‘yes!’ Filmmakers continue to blend genres, push structures and delight our nominators with work that challenges staid divisions between fiction and nonfiction films.”

Ten finalists for the Heterodox Award were selected in voting by the Cinema Eye Honors Nominations Committee. The ten finalists were then viewed and five nominees selected by the writers and editors of Filmmaker Magazine. A jury will watch the five nominees and choose a winner that will be announced on January 9.

“In the third year of the Heterodox Award, our nominated filmmakers explore the interstices of documentary and fiction in fascinating and diverse ways, from situating their characters within the confines of real-life locations (museums, prisons) to exploring within dramatic contexts the aftermath of real crime and social injustice,” said Filmmaker Magazine Editor-in-Chief Scott Macaulay. “Giving all five of these films their extra kick is our knowledge, and sometimes confusion over, the nature of the reality they represent.”

The Five Nominees for the 2013 Cinema Eye Heterodox Award:

Ceasar Must Die (Cesare deve morire)
Directed by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani

In Paolo and Vittorio Taviani’s bracing and politically astute blend of documentary and fiction, real-life Italian inmates of a high-security prison audition for, rehearse and stage a version of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Through its fascinating recontextualization of Shakespeare’s classic, Caesar Must Die explores criminal identity while reflecting the larger tensions of Italian society itself.

Compliance
Directed by Craig Zobel

Drawing its dialogue from phone records and real-life court transcripts, writer/director Craig Zobel’s Compliance turns the true story of a prank phone caller and sexual predator into a disturbing meditation on the politics of authority.

Museum Hours
Directed by Jem Cohen

In Jem Cohen’s lovely meditation on culture, friendship, and the dialogue carried across centuries through art, a lonely woman and quiet museum guard strike a quiet bond while while surveying the paintings of Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum. Cohen’s camera captures the subtlety of their interaction while also evoking the majesty of this museum and its collection.

No
Directed by Pablo Larrain

Detailing the 1988 ouster of Chile’s General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte via constitutional referendum, Pablo Larrain’s No uses footage from the referendum’s actual advertising campaign along with an artfully lo-fi U-matic camera aesthetic to recall the politics as well as the media of its era.

An Oversimplification of Her Beauty
Directed by Terence Nance

An Oversimplification of Her Beauty engagingly obsesses over the filmmaker’s “friend-zone’d” relationship with a charismatic young woman, played in the film by the real-life object of his affection. “One-sided non-fiction” is how Nance describes his picture, which mixes multiple formats as well as animation to present an exhilarating portrait of love, longing and artmaking in the digital age.

In addition, Cinema Eye announced that voting is now open for the 2013 Audience Choice Prize, the Cinema Eye Honor that is decided by the votes of the public. Ten films, including a number of the most talked-about and debated documentaries of the year, are amongst this year’s Audience Choice nominees. Last year, more than 10,000 people voted for the award, which went to Cindy Meehl’s Buck.

This year’s nominees for the Cinema Eye are: 5 Broken Cameras (Directed by Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi), Beauty is Embarrassing (Directed by Neil Berkeley), Bully (Directed by Lee Hirsch), How to Survive a Plague (Directed by David France), The Imposter (Directed by Bart Layton), Jiro Dreams of Sushi (Directed by David Gelb), Kumaré (Directed by Vikram Gandhi), Marina Abramović The Artist is Present (Directed by Matthew Akers), Searching for Sugar Man (Directed by Malik Bendjelloul) and Trash Dance (Directed by Andrew Garrison).

The public can vote for the 2013 Audience Choice Prize on the Cinema Eye Honors website at www.cinemaeyehonors.com/audiencechoice2013 or by sending a message to @cinemaeyehonors on twitter with the name of the film of their choice. [For example: @cinemaeyehonors I vote for Buck!]. Voting will be open through Monday, January 7, 2013.

Deep within the walls of the Roman prison Rebibbia, inmates whisper and conspire, giving new life to the timeless words of William Shakespeare as they rehearse a production of “Julius Caesar.” Utilizing the device of an unfinished theater, the players — a cast comprised entirely of real-life inmates — take the story to their cells, seamlessly moving in and out of the text as they wrestle with notions of necessary crimes and the boundaries of order. By finding the drama within the process rather than the performance, the effect is nothing short of haunting. In CAESAR MUST DIE, the written word takes on an overlay of modern violence and lingering guilt while stripping these men to their very cores. This latest masterpiece from Italy’s famed Taviani brothers not only serves as a deeply human document, but a caustic portrait of our own imprisoned societies, reminding us that a life without art truly is a
prison. —Dayan Ballweg, AFI FEST

A broken date serves as catalyst for an entrancing journey through the heart and mind of aggressively intelligent filmmaker Terence Nance, who turns the camera on himself in this documentary-narrative hybrid. A starry-eyed artist who spirals into self-examination/flagellation sparked by his obsessive, unrequited love for close friend Namik, Nance pulls the viewer into his emotional space via hypothetical scenarios, repeatedly posing the question, “How would you feel?” In fractured essayistic fashion, the filmmaker dissects his past relationships, fantasy life, everyday existence and the culture at large to better understand himself and the nature of love. With each new perspective, the film takes on a new visual language: vérité realism, dramatic recreation, tone poetry and a wild array of animation. Its hyper-literate narration and eclectic visual style lend it the sophistication of a poem or collage, but Nance’s work is pure cinema, playing with repetition and changes in tempo, making references to other films and even to his own experience making this one. An Oversimplification of Her Beauty is wholly unique, peppered throughout with pop culture references and borrowed music underscoring scenes of achingly real life—making for a film that’s both experimental in style and emotionally undeniable.

—Jenni Rowland, San Francisco International Film Festival

Becky and Sandra aren’t the best of friends. Sandra is a middle-aged manager at a fast-food restaurant; Becky is a teenaged counter girl who really needs the job. One stressful day (too many customers and too little bacon), a police officer calls, accusing Becky of stealing money from a customer’s purse, which she vehemently denies. Sandra, overwhelmed by her managerial responsibilities, complies with the officer’s orders to detain Becky. This choice begins a nightmare that tragically blurs the lines between expedience and prudence, legality and reason.

Craig Zobel (his The Great World of Sound appeared at the Festival in 2007) returns with this riveting film, based on a true story. The cast delivers hauntingly authentic performances that make the appalling events unfolding onscreen all the more difficult to watch, but impossible to turn away from. Delving into the complex psychology of the real-life story under its sensationalized surface, COMPLIANCE proves that sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction. – Trevor Groth, Sundance Film Festival

Paintings by the Old Masters inspire a range of powerful emotions in many who encounter them. They also provide crucial historical clues about the socio-political context in which they were created. But what can they say about our age? And what about the great museums that house them, constructs, as they are, of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries? Can these old piles still invoke a wonder for learning and exist as a place apart, where the busy world yields to artistic meditation?

The latest feature by Jem Cohen, a documentary/fiction hybrid, tackles these questions with quiet charm and an inspiring belief in the transformative power of art itself. Set in large part within the Kunsthistorisches Art Museum in Vienna, Museum Hours tells the story of Johann, a museum guard, and Anne, a visitor to the country who’s in town tending to a sick friend. She finds refuge in the museum and the two gradually become friends as they explore, in a series of mesmerizing exchanges, how their lives, the city and the artworks reflect and shape their daily experiences. As they venture out of the museum, it feels as if each place they visit is infused with elements from the paintings they admire. The film ends on a sublime and striking note, as Cohen’s camera reveals how a moment in everyday life, contemplated long enough, can slide into the realm of timeless painterly bliss.

The two leads, non-professional actor Bobby Sommer and Toronto multidisciplinary artist and singer Mary Margaret O’Hara, have an unusual chemistry — part wounded empathy, part benign discomfort — that lends an unusual sincerity to this unique story. Like all elements in Cohen’s work, their performances are precise and unfussy.

Cohen is one of the most important innov-ators and courageous moving-image artists working today. He was a pioneer in artistic-ally meaningful long-form music shorts and transformed the idea of the music documentary with his twin masterpieces Benjamin Smoke and Instrument. He stepped into the world of narrative fiction with 2004’s Chain (which opened Toronto’s Images festival). Museum Hours shows an impressive assurance and intensity, while retaining a lightly worn humility in the face of great art and artists.

The film is a lasting, thoughtful pleasure in every way. – Noah Cowan, Toronto Film Festival

In 1988, succumbing to international pressure, General Augusto Pinochet’s regime in Chile called for a national referendum on the proposal to extend the dictator’s presidency a further eight years. The ballot presented two choices: Yes (extend Pinochet’s rule) or No (no more Pinochet). Much of the population believed that the referendum would be rigged, and was merely a front to placate the international community. There was also the problem for many that participating in the referendum would legitimize it. But many in the opposition did not want to pass up this opportunity to peacefully overthrow Pinochet’s near two-decade reign. Completing his trilogy on the Pinochet years begun with Tony Manero and Post Mortem, with No director Pablo Larraín chronicles the fall of the dictatorship, toppled by its own cynical democratic farce that unwittingly released the real democratic yearnings it had managed to suppress for so many years.

Recruited by the “No” side to design their campaign strategy and make use of their designated fifteen minutes per day of airtime, savvy adman René Saavedra (Gael García Bernal) realizes that not only do they have to convince voters to vote “No” — they also have to convince the disparate, isolated segments of the population to go to the polls in the first place. Instinctively understanding that the campaign cannot focus on the pain and suffering the Pinochet regime has caused during its fifteen years in power, Saavedra instead opts for images of happiness and joy, promoting the image of a “new Chile,” complete with a rainbow logo. Heading the “Yes” campaign is Saavedra’s boss, Lucho Guzmán (Larraín regular Alfredo Castro), who goes so far as to offer Saavedra a partnership if he gives up the “No” campaign. As the “No” campaign begins to gain ground though, the tension begins to mount between the men as Saavedra and those in the opposition begin to receive death threats.

Using a 4:3 aspect ratio and shooting on analog, Larraín maintains the aesthetic of the time period with a grainy look that seamlessly combines new and archival footage. Engaging, suspenseful and breathlessly paced, No is both a tense political thriller with a profound message, and a vibrant document of Chile’s triumphal return to democracy.

Diana Sanchez, Toronto Film Festival

For the second year in a row, six films are in the running for Cinema Eye’s top award, Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking: Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi’s 5 Broken Cameras, Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s Detropia, Bart Layton’s The Imposter, Matthew Akers’ Marina Abramović The Artist is Present, Jason Tippet and Elizabeth Mims’ Only the Young and Malik Bendjelloul’s Searching for Sugar Man.  This marked the first year that nominees for this category were determined by votes from both the 25-person nominations committee as well as more than 60 directors of this year’s eligible films.

The Imposter and Searching for Sugar Man led all films with five nominations each.  Simon Chinn’s Red Box Films and John Battsek’s Passion Pictures were involved in the production of both titles, marking the first time in Cinema Eye history that two films from the same production company are nominated for Outstanding Feature.  Chinn also becomes the first person to be nominated for Outstanding Feature for three different films.  He was previously nominated for Project Nim (2012) and he won in the category for Man on Wire (2009).

Directing teams feature heavily In this year’s awards.  In addition to 5 Broken Camera’s Burnat and Davidi, Detropia’s Ewing and Grady and Only the Young’s Tippet and Mims, brothers Bill and Turner Ross were nominated Outstanding Direction for Tchoupitoulas.  The Ross Brothers’ nomination marks the first time that filmmakers previously nominated for Outstanding Debut (45365, 2010) would go on to be nominated for Outstanding Direction.

Joining Ewing and Grady, Tippet and Mims and the Ross Brothers as nominees for Outstanding Direction are Ra’anan Alexandrowicz for The Law in These Parts, Seungjun Yi for Planet of Snail and Victor Kossakovsky for ¡Vivan las Antipodas!.

Winners of the 6th Annual Cinema Eye Honors will be announced on January 9, 2013 as Cinema Eye returns for a third year to New York City’s Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens.

Ten contenders were named for Cinema Eye’s Audience Choice Prize, which features many of the most talked about and beloved documentaries of 2012, including Neil Berkeley’s Beauty is Embarrassing, Lee Hirsch’s Bully, David Gelb’s Jiro Dreams of Sushi, Vikram Gandhi’s Kumaré and Andrew Garrison’s Trash Dance.

And there was an especially close vote for Outstanding Debut, which resulted in seven nominees in the category (another Cinema Eye first).  In addition to Matthew Akers, Jason Tippet and Elizabeth Mims and Malik Bendjelloul, nominees include Alison Klayman for Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, David France for How to Survive a Plague, Rodney Ascher for Room 237 and Peter Nicks for The Waiting Room.

A full list of nominees with details on each category follows.

About the Cinema Eye Honors and the 2013 Awards

The Cinema Eye Honors were founded in 2007 to recognize excellence in artistry and craft in nonfiction filmmaking.  It was the first and remains the only international nonfiction award to recognize the whole creative team, presenting annual craft awards in directing, producing, cinematography, editing, composing and graphic design/animation.

Cinema Eye is headed by a core team that includes Co-Chairs Esther Robinson (director, A Walk Into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory; Cinema Eye nominee for Outstanding Debut, 2008) and AJ Schnack (director, Kurt Cobain About A Son and founder of Cinema Eye), Producer Nathan Truesdell (producer, Caucus), Nominations Committee Chair Sean Farnel (Former Head of Programming, Hot Docs Film Festival), Advisory Board Chair Andrea Meditch (executive producer, Buck and Man on Wire) and Filmmaker Advisory Board Chair Laura Poitras (director, The Oath; Cinema Eye winner for Outstanding Direction, 2011).

Nominees for the Cinema Eye Honors feature awards are determined in voting by the top documentary programmers from throughout the world.  This year’s nominations committee included Charlotte Cook (Hot Docs), David Courier (Sundance), Heather Croall (Sheffield Doc/Fest), Joanne Feinberg (Ashland Film Festival), Tine Fischer (CPH:DOX), Elena Fortes (Ambulante), Ben Fowlie (Camden International Film Festival), Tom Hall (Sarasota Film Festival), Doug Jones (Los Angeles Film Festival), Amir Labaki (It’s All True, Brazil), Grit Lemke (DOK Liepzig), Caroline Libresco (Sundance Film Festival), Artur Liebhart (Planete Doc Review), David Nugent (Hamptons Film Festival), Veton Nurkollari (DokuFest Kosovo), Janet Pierson (SXSW), Thom Powers (Toronto International Film Festival, DOC NYC), Rachel Rosen (San Francisco), Charlotte Selb (RIDM Montreal), Sky Sitney (Silverdocs), Genna Terranova (Tribeca), Sadie Tillery (Full Frame), David Wilson (True/False) and Brit Withey (Denver).

Finalists for the Cinema Eye Honors short film awards were selected by a nominations committee that included Karen Cirillo (True/False), Charlotte Cook (Hot Docs Documentary Film Festival), Hussain Currimbhoy (Sheffield Doc/Fest), Ben Fowlie (Camden International Film Festival), Claudette Godfrey (SXSW), Ted Mott (Full Frame), Veton Nurkollari (DokuFest Kosovo), Sky Sitney (Silverdocs) and Kim Yutani (Sundance).  Nominees were chosen from a list of 10 finalists by a jury that was composed of Shaz Bennett (filmmaker, writer and former programmer for AFI FEST), Laura Gabbert (director, No Impact Man), Jeff Malmberg (director, Marwencol), Anne Thompson (editor, Thompson on Hollywood and editor-at-large at Indiewire) and Jason Tippet (director, Only the Young).

The members of the Cinema Eye Filmmaker Advisory Board include Mila Aung-Thwin (producer, Last Train Home; Cinema Eye winner for Outstanding Production, 2011), RJ Cutler (director, The September Issue; Cinema Eye winner for Audience Choice, 2010), Sam Green (director, Utopia in Four Movements; Cinema Eye Nominee for Outstanding Original Score (2011), Steve James (director, The Interrupters, Cinema Eye winner for Outstanding Feature and Direction, 2012), Ellen Kuras (director, The Betrayal; Cinema Eye nominee for Outstanding Debut, 2010), Audrey Marrs (producer, Inside Job; Cinema Eye nominee for Outstanding Production, 2011), James Marsh (director, Man on Wire; Cinema Eye winner for Outstanding Feature, 2009) and Morgan Spurlock (director, Where in the World is Osama bin Laden; Cinema Eye nominee for Outsanding Graphics, 2009) and Jennifer Venditti (director, Billy the Kid; Cinema Eye winner for Outstanding Debut, 2008).

HBO Documentary Films is the Premiere Sponsor of the 2013 Cinema Eye Honors.  Venue partner for the 2013 Cinema Eye Honors is the Museum of the Moving Image.  Festival partners for Cinema Eye are AFI FEST, Camden International Film Festival and Hot Docs Documentary Film Festival.  Industry Sponsors include A&E IndieFilms.  Supporting sponsors include the LEF Foundation.  Additional sponsors will be named in the coming weeks.

The Waiting Room is a riveting day in the life of an Oakland, California, public hospital’s overtaxed emergency room. The film expertly weaves the stories of several patients—most of them uninsured—who come to the inner-city facility because they have nowhere else to go. Extraordinary access to patients and caregivers paints a vivid picture of the ailing state of America’s health care system. A ballsy nurse, an anxious father, a drugged out serial patient and a small group of other memorable characters do a far better job conveying the urgent need to address the inequalities rampant in the system than do talking-head experts. And while the film is a reflection on the dysfunctional system as a whole, it’s equally about one hospital, one community and how our common vulnerability to illness binds us together as humans. Shannon Abel (Hot Docs)