Filmmaker Geeta Gandbhir pulled off a remarkable feat as the Oscar nominations were announced this morning, scoring two nods – one for directing documentary feature The Perfect Neighbor and another for documentary short The Devil Is Busy, which she co-directed with Christalyn Hampton.
These are the first two nominations of Gandbhir’s career. In the Best Documentary Feature race, The Perfect Neighbor will go up against The Alabama Solution, directed by Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman; Come See Me in the Good Light, directed by Ryan White; Cutting Through Rocks, directed by Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni, and Mr. Nobody Against Putin, directed by David Borenstein and co-directed by Pavel Talankin.
The Perfect Neighbor, from Netflix, examines a shocking crime in Ocala, FL in 2023: the killing of a Black woman, 35-year-old mother of four Ajike Owens who was shot to death by her neighbor, a 58-year-old white woman named Susan Lorincz. Gandbhir tells the story almost entirely through police body cam and dash cam footage.
Oscar documentary branch voters snubbed past Academy Award winner Laura Poitras (Citizenfour), who had earned a spot on the Oscar shortlist with Cover-Up, co-directed by Mark Obenhaus. The doc branch also overlooked Mstyslav Chernov, winner of Best Documentary Feature winner two years ago for his Ukraine war documentary 20 Days in Mariupol. He wasn’t rewarded with a nomination for his Ukraine-themed follow up, 2000 Meters to Andriivka.
Andrea Gibson (left) and Meg Falley in ‘Come See Me in the Good Light’
Apple TV
White earned the first Oscar nomination of his career for Come See Me in the Good Light, from Apple TV. He produced the film with Jessica Hargrave, Tig Notaro, and Stef Willen, who also earned nominations. Their film tells the love story of poets Andrea Gibson and Meg Falley and how the couple managed to confront Gibson’s terminal cancer diagnosis with grace, bravery, and humor.
Sara Shahverdi rides her motorbike in ‘Cutting Through Rocks’
Gandom Films Production
Cutting Through Rocks, winner of the Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema Documentary at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, earned a nomination despite lacking U.S. distribution. Filmmaking couple Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni, who were born in Iran and now live in New York, earned the first Oscar nominations of their careers. They returned to Iran to make Cutting Through Rocks, which revolves around the singular Sara Shahverdi, the first woman in her village to win a seat on the local council – a stunning achievement in her deeply patriarchal country.
‘The Alabama Solution’
HBO Max/Everett Collection
Jarecki, known for his Emmy-winning documentary series The Jinx, earned an Oscar nomination for his 2003 documentary Capturing the Friedmans. He returns to the Oscar fold with The Alabama Solution, while it marks the first Academy Award nomination for fellow director Charlotte Kaufman. Their film investigates shocking conditions in Alabama’s state prisons and makes use of videos secretly recorded by some inmates.
Pavel Talankin in ‘Mr. Nobody Against Putin’
Kino Lorber
Mr. Nobody Against Putin, recently acquired by Kino Lorber, will be released today in theaters and on streaming platform Kino Film Collection. It brought the first Oscar nominations to Borenstein and to Talankin – who not only co-directs but is the protagonist of the film documenting his experience as a popular events coordinator and videographer at a grade school in the remote Russian town of Karabash. Talankin risked everything to defy a propagandistic curriculum imposed by the Kremlin on schoolchildren nationwide after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
HBO scored nominations for The Alabama Solution and in the doc shorts category The Devil Is Busy and Armed Only with a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud. The nominations brought some positive news, along with some disappointment, to Netflix. The streamer secured a nomination for feature doc The Perfect Neighbor but didn’t succeed with its other two hopefuls in that category – Apocalypse in the Tropics and Cover-Up. Netflix did earn a nomination in the documentary short category for All the Empty Rooms, directed by Joshua Seftel.
Along with All the Empty Rooms, The Devil Is Busy, and Armed Only with a Camera, the nominees for Best Short Documentary are Children No More: Were and Are Gone, directed by Hilla Medalia and produced by Medalia and doc legend Sheila Nevins; and Perfectly a strangeness, directed by Canadian filmmaker Alison McAlpine (that film, as we recently reported, stars three donkeys).
Also of note to documentary lovers – two of the five Best Original Song nominees come from nonfiction features. “Dear Me,” written by Diane Warren, earned the composer the 17th nomination of her career; she has yet to win a competitive Oscar, though she did receive an honorary one. “Dear Me” was written for the documentary about her, Diane Warren: Relentless, directed by Bess Kargman. “Sweet Dreams of Joy,” with music and lyrics by Nicholas Pike, is the rare aria to earn an Oscar nomination for Original Song. It comes from the documentary feature Viva Verdi! directed by Yvonne Russo.
The Oscars will be presented on March 15, airing live on ABC and Hulu.