On 20 October, American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced a shortlist of eight documentary films which have a chance to be nominated for the Academy Award in the Documentary Short Subject category. Two of them are Polish films. The shortlist includes “Our curse” by Tomasz Śliwiński, produced by Warsaw Film School, and “Joanna” by Aneta Kopacz, produced by Wajda Studio.
Eight films which still have a chance to win the Academy Award were selected from among 58 films, qualified this year for competition in the Documentary Short Subject category. Here is the full shortlist in the alphabetical order, with the films’ producers:
“Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1,” Perry Films
“Joanna,” Wajda Studio
“Kehinde Wiley: An Economy of Grace,” Show of Force
“The Lion’s Mouth Opens,” Tree Tree Tree
“One Child,” New York University
“Our Curse,” Warsaw Film School
“The Reaper (La Parka),” Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica
“White Earth,” Weary Traveler
Three to five films from the list above will receive nominations for the Academy Awards on 15 January 2015. The award ceremony, during which the winners of each category will be announced, will be held on 22 February 2015.
Joanna, the main character of the film by Aneta Kopacz, runs a very popular blog. The reason why so many people follow it is because it teaches them how to be thoughtful and joyful. Joanna describes her daily life with overwhelming honesty and accuracy. Her goals are as simple as a family trip to the lakes, her planning is as short-term as to witness her little son riding a bike for the first time. Diagnosed with untreatable illness, Joanna promises her son that she will do her best to live for as long as possible. She writes down everything she might want him to learn from her when he grows up.
In “Our Curse,” Tomasz Śliwiński points his camera at his own family. Together with his wife, he has to face a very rare, incurable disease of their new-born child – Ondine's Curse (congenital central hypoventilation syndrome, CCHS). People afflicted with this disease stop breathing during sleep and require life-long use of respirator to support their respiratory functions. The director documents the first months of his family's life after the birth of the child.
Both “Joanna” and “Our Curse” are very successful. Each of them can boast several dozen festival screenings and very good reception of the audience. Both films are among the most frequently awarded Polish documentaries this year. “Our Curse” won the best short documentary film award at film festivals in Aspen, in Monterrey, in Sapporo and at the Raindance festival in Great Britain, among others. Last year, it was nominated for the IDFA awards. Among the awards for “Joanna,” one can mention the Best Short Documentary Film Award in Palm Springs, the Silver Eye in Jihlava, and the Youth Jury Prize in Lepizig. Recently, “Joanna” was included on the shortlist for the Cinema Eye Honors awards.
This year, the Academy Award ceremony will be held for the seventy-eighth time. So far, no Polish documentary film won this prestigious award. In history, four Polish documentary films were nominated for the Academy Awards: “The White Eagle” by Eugeniusz Cękalski (1943), “89mm from Europe” by Marcel Łoziński (1993), “The Children of Leningradsky” by Hanna Polak and Andrzej Celiński (2005) and “Rabbit a la Berlin” by Bartek Konopka (2005).
You can find the announcement of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences about the selection of films for the shortlist here.