By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

CITIZENFOUR Takes Four At 8th Cinema Eye Honors For Docs

Posted Thursday, January 8th, 2015 - Comments Off on CITIZENFOUR Takes Four At 8th Cinema Eye Honors For Docs
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Edward Snowden/NSA Documentary Named Outstanding Feature, Direction, Editing, Production

2 Historic Ties in Cinematography and Graphic Design

20,000 Days on Earth Wins Two Awards

Keep On Keepin’ On Wins Audience Choice Prize

ESPN’s The Price of Gold Wins TV Award / The Lions Mouth Opens Named Outstanding Short

January 7, 2015, Astoria, Queens, New York – Citizenfour, Laura Poitras’ first person account of Edward Snowden’s revelations about NSA spying, picked up four awards at the 8th Annual Cinema Eye Honors, including Outstanding Nonfiction Feature and Outstanding Direction, held Wednesday night at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, New York.  It’s the second film in Cinema Eye history to win four awards (Ari Folman’s Waltz With Bashir was the first) and the second to win both the Direction and Feature awards (Steve James’ The Interrupters did it in 2012).

 

Poitras also becomes the first person in Cinema Eye history to win the award for Outstanding Direction twice (she previously won for The Oath in 2011).  Citizenfour also won awards for Mathilde Bonnefoy’s Editing and for the film’s Production, which was shared by Poitras, Bonnefoy and Dirk Wilutsky.  In total, Poitras won three awards, tying a record set previously by Lixin Fan in 2011 for Last Train Home.

 

There were two ties at this year’s Cinema Eye Honors, a first for the awards.  In the category of Graphic Design, Syd Garon of Jodorowsky’s Dune and Heather Brantman & Tim Fisher of Particle Fever shared the honor, while in Cinematography, laurels were shared by 20,000 Days on Earth’s Erik Wilson and Virunga’s Franklin Dow and Orlando von Einsiedel.  Previously, there had only been one other tie at Cinema Eye, in 2010 for Graphic Design.

 

Alan Hicks’ Keep On Keepin’ On won the Audience Choice Prize, which was determined by public voting at the Cinema Eye website.  More than 7,000 people cast their vote in the final 36 hours of voting for the Audience award.

 

The Nonfiction Short Film award went to Lucy Walker’s The Lions Mouth Open.  Walker won the Cinema Eye Honor for Nonfiction Film for Television last year for her film The Crash Reel.  She becomes the first person in Cinema Eye history to win awards in back-to-back years in different categories.

 

This year’s award for Nonfiction Film for Television went to ESPN 30 for 30’s The Price of Gold, directed by Nanette Burstein.

 

Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Sam Green hosted this year’s event, with an audio assist from Serial podcast host Sarah Koenig, who served as announcer and Voice of God for this year’s proceedings.  Presenters included documentary legends Albert Maysles, DA Pennebaker, Steve James, Alan Berliner and the director and editor of this year’s Legacy Award winner Paris is Burning, Jennie Livingston and Jonathan Oppenheim.

 

A full list of this year’s winners follows:

 

Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking

 

Citizenfour

Directed by Laura Poitras

Produced by Laura Poitras, Mathilde Bonnefoy and Dirk Wilutzky

 

Outstanding Achievement in Direction

 

Laura Poitras

Citizenfour

 

Outstanding Achievement in Editing

 

Mathilde Bonnefoy

Citizenfour

 

Outstanding Achievement in Production

 

Laura Poitras, Mathilde Bonnefoy and Dirk Wilutzky

Citizenfour

 

Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography (tie)

 

Erik Wilson

20,000 Days on Earth

 

Franklin Dow and Orlando von Einsiedel

Virunga

 

Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Films Made for Television

 

The Price of Gold

Directed by Nanette Burstein

Produced by Libby Geist

For ESPN/30 for 30: John Dahl, Connor Schell, Bill Simmons

 

Audience Choice Prize

 

Keep On Keepin’ On

Directed by Alan Hicks

 

Outstanding Achievement in a Debut Feature Film

 

Finding Vivian Maier

Directed by John Maloof and Charlie Siskel

 

Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Score

 

Nick Cave and Warren Ellis

20,000 Days on Earth

 

Outstanding Achievement in Graphic Design or Animation (tie)

 

Syd Garon

Jodorowsky’s Dune

 

Heather Brantman & Tim Fisher

Particle Fever

 

Spotlight Award

 

1971

Directed by Johanna Hamilton

 

Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Short Filmmaking

 

The Lion’s Mouth Opens

Directed by Lucy Walker

 

Heterodox Award

 

Boyhood

Directed by Richard Linklater

 

Legacy Award

 

Paris is Burning

Directed by Jennie Livingston

 

About Cinema Eye, Cinema Eye Week and the 2015 Cinema Eye Honors

 

Cinema Eye was 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.

 

The Honors ceremony is the centerpiece of Cinema Eye Week, a multi-day, multi-city celebration that acknowledges the best work in nonfiction film through screenings and events.  The final three days of Cinema Eye Week culminated in New York City, where a series of celebratory events brought together many of the year’s most accomplished filmmakers.

 

The Premiere Sponsor for the Cinema Eye Honors is HBO Documentary Films.  Netflix and Radius/TWC are Major Sponsors.  Festival Partners include Camden International Film Festival, CPH:DOX, Hot Docs and True/False.  The Institutional Sponsor for CEH15 is The Murray Center for Documentary Journalism at the University of Missouri.  The Museum of the Moving Image is the Venue Partner.  Industry Sponsors include Abel Cine, ACE American Cinema Editors, Chicken and Egg, Filmmaker Magazine, LEF Foundation and Spacestation.

 

Cinema Eye is headed by a core team that includes Nominations Committee Chair Charlotte Cook (Head of Programming, Hot Docs Film Festival), Cinema Eye Week Producer Will Lennon (director, Phoebe’s Birthday Cheeseburger), Board Chair Andrea Meditch (executive producer, Buck and Man on Wire), Honors Chair Esther Robinson (director, A Walk Into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory), Founding Director AJ Schnack (director, Caucus and Kurt Cobain About A Son) and Cinema Eye Week Director Nathan Truesdell (producer, We Always Lie to Strangers).  Wendy Garrett served as the 2015 Honors Producer.

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), Hussain Currimbhoy (Sundance Film Festival), Cara Cusumano (Tribeca), Joanne Feinberg (Ashland Film Festival), Elena Fortes (Ambulante), Ben Fowlie (Camden International Film Festival), Tom Hall (Montclair Film Festival), Sarah Harris (Dallas Film Festival), Doug Jones (formerly of Los Angeles Film Festival), Jim Kolmar (SXSW), Amir Labaki (It’s All True, Brazil), Artur Liebhart (Planete Doc Review), David Nugent (Hamptons Film Festival), Veton Nurkollari (DokuFest Kosovo), Janet Pierson (SXSW), Thom Powers (Toronto International Film Festival), Rachel Rosen (San Francisco), Charlotte Selb (RIDM Montreal), Sky Sitney (formerly of AFI DOCS), Genna Terranova (Tribeca), Sadie Tillery (Full Frame), Basil Tsiokos (DOC NYC) and David Wilson (True/False).

Nominees for the Cinema Eye Honors short film awards were selected by a nominations committee that included Karen Cirillo (True/False), Charlotte Cook (Hot Docs), Hussain Currimbhoy (Sheffield Doc/Fest), Cara Cusumano (Tribeca), Ben Fowlie (Camden International Film Festival), Claudette Godfrey (SXSW), Doug Jones (formerly of Los Angeles Film Festival), Ted Mott (Full Frame), Veton Nurkollari (DokuFest Kosovo), Rachel Rosen (San Francisco) Sky Sitney (formerly of AFI DOCS) and Kim Yutani (Sundance).
Nominees for the Television Award were selected by a nominations committee of film critics and writers that included Miriam Bale, Steve Dollar, Eric Hynes, Liz Shannon Miller, Mark Olsen and Allison Willmore.

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~ David Simon