These trailers are in order of my opinion for most deserving of the award to least.  After each trailer I give a brief explanation for why I feel this way.  Full disclosure:  For this exercise i’ve checked all objectivity at the door.  It’s all about me.  You don’t like it…make your own damn list.

Hell and Back Again

A lot of trailers for documentaries put their most cinematic foot forward.  Then you settle into the actual film and it feel less cinematic and more handy camish.  This is often a good thing as the one man/one camera production model often yields the most intimate moments you’ll ever find in film. Hell and Back Again, however didn’t compromise the cinematic aesthetic for intimacy.  From the first moment to the last the film looks beautiful while filming life and death moments in Afghanistan as well as during reveling times back home when young Sergeant Nathan Harris recovers from wounds he suffered in battle with his y0ung wife at his side.  It’s shot so well, so unobtrusively, that if you were to walk into this film not knowing it was a documentary, you may never believe it was.

In creating such a beautifully shot doc, director/shooter, Danfung Dennis has also proven me wrong. As someone who also does a great deal of directing and shooting as a bit of a one-man-band, I didn’t believe DSLRs could make good run-n-gun cameras for doc filmmaking due to the audio limitations as well as their maximum recording limits.  Dennis built a custom rig out of a glidecam 2000 and other odds and ends to turn the Canon 5D Mark II into a run and gun machine.  Although he does admit there were technical issues to deal with, what camera doesn’t.

A great film from being to end and deserving of an Oscar in my opion.

Paradise Lost 3: Pergatory

Free the West Memphis 3!  Nobody that makes docs got into this business to make a million bucks.  Instead, we got into this business because we wanted to exist at the intersection between truth and art and hopefully create stories that have purpose, sometimes change the world.  Sadly, it doesn’t always work that way.  But then, there are times that it does.  Like it did when Randall Dale Adams was release from prison after the Erroll Morris film, the Thin Blue Line ultimately got Adam’s case reviewed and released from death row and prison.  Here’s another one of those times that reminds us that maybe doc film can make a lasting impact .

If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front

Marshall Curry, the man that made Newark Mayor, Cory Booker a political hot rod through his previous doc, Street Fight, is back on the ballot with this rigorously researched piece about Environmental Liberation Front – the once clandestine agro-environmental group who became famous for applying radical, black bloc, techniques to vehemently defend mother earth…until one of their members decided to sing like a bird to the feds, that is.

The entire story is hung off the personal arc of one previous member of ELF, Daniel McGowan, and his prosecution for some of the actions he had been a part of with ELF – actions which eventually landed McGowan in jail as not just a criminal, but a domestic terrorist.  Question this ‘terrorist’ branding that McGowan and other ELFers received  as the thesis of the entire film.  Curry’s filmmaking point of view is really subtle – sympathetic to the logger the environmentalist and even the lawman.  I liked it.

The Undefeated

Friday Night Lights may have run its course, but Coach Eric Taylor has been reincarnated as Bill Courtney, head football coach at North Memphis High School.  I love sports docs.  This one is no different.  I’m putting it further down on my list because, I have seen this story before – as a wheel chair basketball team, a swim team, a cricket team, a hockey team, a girls basketball team in Canada on and on and on.  Always a great story arc for sure.  But not a first run Oscar doc.  Sorry.

Pina

Shot in 3-D and visually arresting at times…what can I say, the only dance I’ve ever really liked is the running man.  Sorry.  This film was made with love for millions of people.  I, unfortunately, am not one of them.  So although I respect its merits on many levels,  as a niche doc I’m a bit dumbfounded that it made the top 5 list, while others like Senna and Battle for Brooklyn did not.

T

POV is reporting on all the docs premiering at Sundance this week.  As usual, some of the docs receiving the greatest fanfare are ones made by celebrity-turned-doc makers.  This year these celebrities, who often appear as much or more in front of the camera as they do behind it, include the likes of Ice-T with Something for Nothing:  The Art of Rap and Rory Kenned’s, Ethal.  Blogging for POV, Edward Delaney, writes up a pretty interesting critique of this genre of docs that has gained momentum since Michael Moore, made the technique infamous with Roger and Me.  Delaney questions the motives behind such docs and if the commitment to truth, the corner stone of any great doc, isn’t often bent for other, more earthly motives:

…I find myself with that vaguely sickening feeling that celebrities make documentaries because they are burnishing self-image, protecting or enhancing their brand, or sometimes doing a salvage job. Think Al Gore. Or Exit Through Gift Shop, 2010 Sundance pick that a) may not have been factually accurate, and b) did more to build the artist Banksy’s brand than all of his previous work, but, most terribly, c) probably inspired a string of maybe-not-so-true-true-story docs…

Naturally, it’s something that needs to be assessed case by case, but I tend to agree with Delaney who finds that when the journalistic pursuit can even be questioned to have taken a back seat to the merits of on-camera celebrity something, for me anyway, is lost:

Documentary is likewise a marriage between art and something akin to the journalistic. But, and maybe it’s because of my own background in journalism, I lean toward the work of people who don’t make films about themselves, who explore a topic of consequence and who stay behind the camera.

Read Delaney’s complete article over at the POV Blog…

Whether you love sports or hate sports there’s no denying it – ESPN is creating some of the best docs out there today.  And not just the best sports docs, but some of the best docs as a whole.  The long form series 30 for 30 was without a doubt the game changer, but ESPN hasn’t stopped there.  Take a look at the series, E60 – this series is creating some of the best portraits of both celebrity athletes and real people that you’ll find anywhere.  Above is a one act about teen suicide that’s coated only slightly with a sporty varnish..

Shot in 12 countries over 4 years and to the tune of $3.1 million, Fallen Commrades!  Chronicles the decline of the Soviet Bloc.  Directed by Andrei Nekrasov and co-produced by Artline Filmes, this ambitious project will air in 15 European countries and integrate an online portion of interactive media to grab the attention of both TV and online audiences across Europe.

The web portion of the doc cost $50 thousand to produce.  It allows users to navigate an interactive program through found postcards from people who lived through the decline of the Soviet Union between 1975 and 1991.  The web doc will be available online in various languages at Arte.tv

Originally reported on Real Screen here.