It is no secret how, in recent years, IDFA has become a hotbed for Oscars campaigning for Best Documentary Feature and Best Short Documentary. Timing-wise, the Dutch festival is at the perfect place in the calendar, occurring every year around three weeks before preliminary voting opens for branch members, and festival sections like Signed and Best of Fests mean highlights of the year, from Sundance to Toronto, all make their way to Amsterdam — and so do most of their teams, with Netflix and National Geographic, for example, hosting buzzy receptions and special screenings for their big contenders on the ground.
Tapping into awards season buzz from the festival, Michael Benedict — one of the directors at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences overseeing branches like documentary and animation — gave a presentation outlining the eligibility, submission and campaigning process for docs vying for a coveted Oscar nomination. As a reminder, preliminary voting for Best Documentary starts Dec. 8 and closes Dec. 12, with documentary branch members asked to submit a list of their top 15 films ranked by preference. IDFA is an Oscar-qualifying festival, meaning the award-winning films will automatically be eligible for next year’s Academy Awards.
While explaining the logistics of branch voting, Benedict took a moment to emphasize how documentaries are eligible not only in their own category, but all craft categories and Best Picture. “I am always fighting for documentaries to be recognized in other categories,” he said. “I’m a little embarrassed to say that we are over 90 years old and there has never been a documentary nominated for Best Picture. We’ve had animated films, international films… Being one of the leads working with this category, it is my mission to work with the branch to hopefully make this happen one day.”
Prodded on how he is working to change the presence of documentaries in other categories, the exec said he and his team are “trying to get the word out there.” “I’ve been trying to work with the Academy in connecting the dots of people who work in both fields, for example, they do documentary features and narrative features, to see how they can maybe bridge that gap, not just for the public but for membership. The Academy screening room is not just for films entered for Oscar consideration; we also have educational platforms, and that is the way we are trying to get people not to be scared of voting for a documentary in certain areas.”
“We are trying to plant the seeds,” he emphasized. “Progress takes time, but we’ve seen a lot of interest from members trying to vote in other categories.”
Recently, lauded filmmakers like Laura Poitras and Kaouther Ben-Hania have spoken about the difficulties in landing U.S. distribution for politically driven films. With documentaries at the forefront of telling stories about pressing sociopolitical matters such as the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, how does the Academy see the issue of distribution and visibility for political doc?
Asked by Variety about the issue, Benedict said the documentary branch is “at the forefront” when it comes to anticipating such industry hurdles. “They really did see these issues,” he said. “This is why the qualifying film festivals were put in place with documentary features, because when we came out to festivals, people would say, ‘I can’t get access to U.S. distribution.’ By having that qualifying film festival, it’s a way where you can bypass distribution and, hopefully, if the film is shortlisted, it can eventually get there, but it’s not a requirement.” The exec added that the change in regulations that allows films selected by their countries for Best International Feature to automatically qualify for Best Documentary has also helped in this sense.
“As far as the qualifying areas, about seven years ago, films could only qualify in Los Angeles,” adds Benedict of recent changes that have improved the access of smaller docs to the Oscars. “The pandemic helped in this way. We had to expand the areas where films could qualify. We expanded to some of the biggest U.S. territories, where theater markets are really big, San Francisco, New York, Chicago… We noticed a change when independent movies didn’t have to play in L.A. Obviously, as we are becoming more international, there are always conversations about how we can expand the qualifying methods without opening the floodgates. We have thousands and thousands and thousands of movies to consider, so it’s a balancing act, but we are definitely taking notes.”
feature film for “Parasite.”
Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP/Shutt
Talking about numbers, the documentary branch is the largest of the Academy — and the most diverse. In the past, leading figures within the section, like branch governor Roger Ross Williams, have spoken about how the diversity of their cohort has changed the entire landscape of the Oscars, not just their category. In 2021, Williams told Variety that the documentary branch “probably played a big role” in Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite” becoming the first-ever non-English language film to win Best Picture. During Benedict’s talk, fellow branch governor Jean Tsien, who was in attendance, echoed Williams: “The year ‘Parasite’ won Best Picture, it was due to the diversity increase of all the branches,” she noted.
Are other branches taking note — and finding inspiration in — the trailblazing qualities of the documentary branch? Benedict says yes, especially when it comes to the animation branch. “The animation and documentary branches are the most similar because they are community branches. They are made up of directors, producers, editors, cinematographers… It’s a wide range of people, unlike some of the other branches, like costume design and make up and hair.”
“I think they kind of borrow from each other,” he added. “Every once in a while, they look at each other and go: ‘Oh, they did that. We are going to do that.’ For the animation branch, they used to be part of the short films branch. They have since split, and the animators noticed a dip in women in their branch. So now they’ve been taking a cue from the documentary branch and are focusing on women. They are working toward hopefully meeting gender parity one day. It takes a few years. The documentary branch eventually got there, and now there are actually more women in the documentary branch than men.”
Benedict notes that the internationalization and diversification of the Academy have drastically changed what’s possible when it comes to Oscar noms. “We’ve had an international movie nominated for Best Picture for the last ten years. That never used to happen. Genre films that would have never gotten nominated 20 years ago are now making their way through. It’s nice to have a good combination of films you can select from as the best of the best.”
