02/12/2015 - The shortlist for Best Documentary at the 2016 Academy Awards includes six European productions or co-productions out of a total selection of 15 features

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced the 15 films shortlisted in the Documentary Feature category of the 88th Academy Awards. Originally, 124 films were submitted, and a total of six European productions and co-productions were eventually selected for the early cut. The Academy’s Documentary branch decided on its list in a preliminary round of voting, which will be narrowed down to five final nominees, set to be announced on 14 January 2016.

Among the European productions are celebrated titles such as the Venice Grand Jury Prize winner The Look of Silence [+see also:
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film profile] by Joshua Oppenheimer, a Final Cut For Real co-production between Denmark, Finland, Indonesia, the United Kingdom and Norway; and We Come as Friends [+see also:
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film profile] by Hubert Sauper, an Austrian-French co-production by KGP Kranzelbinder Gabriele Production and Adelante Films, which was awarded Best Documentary at the 2015 Austrian Film Awards. Amy [+see also:
trailer
film profile], the British-US biopic about late singer Amy Winehouse, directed by Asif Kapadia and produced by Playmaker Films, Universal Music and Krishwerkz Entertainment, is also on the shortlist, together with Heart of a Dog [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Laurie Anderson – a co-production between France and the USA – and the British title Listen to Me Marlon [+see also:
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film profile] by Stevan Riley, which utilises hundreds of hours of audio recorded by American actor Marlon Brando over the course of his life. Evgeny Afineevsky’s Winter on Fire [+see also:
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The nine other feature documentaries voted into the preliminary selection are primarily US productions or co-productions: Best of Enemies by Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon, Cartel Land by Matthew Heineman, Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief by Alex Gibney, He Named Me Malala by Davis Guggenheim, The Hunting Ground by Kirby Dick, Meru by Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, 3 1/2 Minutes, 10 Bullets by Marc Silver, What Happened, Miss Simone? by Liz Garbus and Where to Invade Next by prestigious documentary filmmaker Michael Moore. It is also fair to mention the absence of titles like HBO's Kurt Cobain documentary Montage of Heck by Brett Morgen, Steve Jobs: Man in The Machine by Alex Gibney and Iris by the late Albert Maysles.

The 88th Academy Awards will take place at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on 28 February 2016.