“Black and Missing” Directed by Geeta Gandbhir wins Outstanding Non-Fiction Series
“All That Breathes,” a documentary about two brothers who run a refuge for birds that have been injured by the pollution in New Delhi, has been named the best nonfiction film of 2022 at the 16th annual Cinema Eye Honors ceremony, which took place on Thursday night at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, New York.
“All That Breathes” previously won the top award at the International Documentary Association’s IDA Documentary Awards, the other major award devoted to nonfiction film. It is also on the 15-film shortlist for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
Laura Poitras won the award for directing for “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” while “Navalny” won the award for production.
In the craft categories, a distinctive feature of the Cinema Eye Honors, the immersive David Bowie film “Moonage Daydream” won awards for sound design and visual design, tying in the latter category with Sara Dosa’s “Fire of Love.” Dosa’s film also won the award for composer Nicolas Godin’s score and for editors Erin Casper and Jocelyne Chaput. “All That Breathes” won the award for cinematography.
Other winners included “The Territory” for Outstanding Debut, “Master of Light” with the Spotlight Award for an underseen film and “Aftersun” with the Heterodox Award, which goes to a film that blurs the lines between fiction and nonfiction.
“Nuisance Bear” won the award for nonfiction short, while “Navalny” won the audience choice award.
In the television categories, the winners were “Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes” for broadcast film, “Black and Missing” for nonfiction series, “How to With John Wilson” for anthology series, “We Need to Talk About Cosby” for editing and “Playing With Sharks” for cinematography.
Cinema Eye was founded in 2007 to honor all aspects of nonfiction filmmaking. Its awards are voted on by more than 800 filmmakers, distributors, programmers and curators, writers, critics and others in the documentary community. (Full disclosure: I am a voter.)
Cinema Eye winners do not typically match the Oscar for documentary feature; the two groups agreed in 2020 with “American Factory,” and three times in the 12 years before that. But more often than not, particularly in recent years as the Academy’s Documentary Branch has grown and gotten more adventurous, Cinema Eye winners are at least nominated for the doc Oscar.
The list of winners:
Outstanding Nonfiction Feature: “All That Breathes”
Directed and Produced by Shaunak Sen
Produced by Aman Mann and Teddy Leife
Outstanding Direction: “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed”
Laura Poitras, director
Outstanding Editing: “Fire of Love”
Erin Casper and Jocelyne Chaput, editors
Outstanding Production: “Navalny”
Odessa Rae, Diane Becker, Melanie Miller and Shane Boris, producers
Outstanding Cinematography: “All That Breathes”
Ben Bernhard and Riju Das, cinematographers
Outstanding Original Score: “Fire of Love”
Nicolas Godin, composer
Outstanding Sound Design: “Moonage Daydream”
Samir Foco, John Warhurst and Nina Hartstone, sound designers
Outstanding Visual Design: (tie)
“Fire of Love”
Lucy Munger, animation; Kara Blake, graphic artist; and Rui Ting Ji, hand-drawn animation & illustrations
“Moonage Daydream”
Stefan Nadelman, animation
Outstanding Debut: “The Territory”
Directed by Alex Pritz
Outstanding Broadcast Film: “Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes”
Directed by James Jones
Outstanding Nonfiction Series: “Black and Missing”
Directed by Geeta Gandbhir and Samantha Knowles
Outstanding Anthology Series: “How to with John Wilson” (Season Two)
Nathan Fielder, Michael Koman, Clark Reinking and John Wilson
Outstanding Broadcast Editing: “We Need to Talk About Cosby”
Meg Ramsay, editor
Outstanding Broadcast Cinematography: “Playing With Sharks”
Michael Taylor, Judd Overton, Nathan Barlow and Toby Ralph, cinematographers
Outstanding Nonfiction Short: “Nuisance Bear”
Directed by Jack Weisman and Gabriela Osio Vanden
Audience Choice Prize: “Navalny”
Directed by Daniel Roher
Spotlight: “Master of Light”
Directed by Rosa Ruth Boesten
Heterodox: “Aftersun”
Directed by Charlotte Wells
The Unforgettables (Non-Competitive Honor):
“All That Breathes,” Mohammad Saud and Nadeem Shehzad
“All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” Nan Goldin
“Bad Axe,” Chun Siev
“Beba,” Rebeca Huntt
“Fire of Love,” Katia and Maurice Krafft
“Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down,” Gabby Giffords
“I Didn’t See You There,” Reid Davenport
“In Her Hands,” Zarifa Ghafari
“Last Flight Home,” Eli Timoner
“Mija,” Doris Muñoz
“My Old School,” Brandon Lee
“Navalny,” Alexei Navalny
“Nothing Compares,” Sinead O’Connor
“Sr.,” Robert Downey Sr.
“The Territory”, Bitaté Uru-eu-wau-wau and Neidinha Bandeira
Legacy Award: “Crumb”
Directed by Terry Zwigoff
Produced by Lynn O’Donnell and Terry Zwigoff
Edited by Victor Livingston
Cinematography by Maryse Alberti
Music by David Beddinghaus
Sound by Scott Breindell
