15 Docs Continue in 2008 Oscar® Race

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that 15 films in the Documentary Feature category will advance in the voting process for the 81st Academy Awards®. A record 94 pictures originally qualified in the category. The Documentary Branch Screening Committee viewed all the eligible documentaries for the preliminary round of voting. Documentary Branch members will now select the five nominees from among the 15 titles on this shortlist.

The 15 films are listed below in alphabetical order:

AT THE DEATH HOUSE DOOR

THE BETRAYAL (Nerakhoon)

BLESSED IS THE MATCH: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF HANNAH SENESH

ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD

FUEL

THE GARDEN

GLASS: A PORTRAIT OF PHILIP IN TWELVE PARTS

I.O.U.S.A.

IN A DREAM

MADE IN AMERICA

MAN ON WIRE

PRAY THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL

STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE (S.O.P.)

THEY KILLED SISTER DOROTHY

TROUBLE THE WATER

The 81st Academy Awards nominations will be announced on Thursday, 22 January 2009, at 5:30 a.m., PT, in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2008 will be presented on Sunday, 22 February 2009, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live by the ABC Television Network. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 200 countries worldwide.

Here are the five I would like to see nominated: GLASS: A PORTRAIT OF PHILIP IN TWELVE PARTS, MADE IN AMERICA, MAN ON WIRE, PRAY THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL, and STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE. What are your picks?

Fourteen Features May Qualify For 81st Oscars®

Fourteen feature films have been submitted for consideration in the Animated Feature Film category for the 81st Academy Awards®. However, seven are not yet fully qualified to proceed in the Oscar-nomination process because they have not had their required Los Angeles qualifying theatrical releases.

The complete conditional list is:
BOLT
DELGO
DR. SEUSS' HORTON HEARS A WHO!
DRAGON HUNTERS
FLY ME TP THE MOON
IGOR
KUNG FU PANDA
MADAGASCAR: ESCAPE 2 AFRICA
$9.99
THE SKY CRAWLERS
SWORD OF THE STRANGER
THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX
WALL-E
WALZ WITH BASHIR

BOLT, DELGO, DRAGON HUNTERS, $9.99, THE SKY CRAWLERS, THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX, and WALZ WITH BASHIR have not yet had their required Los Angeles qualifying runs. Submitted features must fulfill the theatrical release requirements and meet all of the category’s other qualifying rules before they can advance in the voting process.

Under the rules for this category, a maximum of three (3) films can be nominated in a year in which the field of eligible entries numbers at least eight (8) but fewer than 16. Right now, there are eight (8) films qualified to move forward, and only seven (7) left to qualify. Thus, there will definitely be fewer than 16 eligible films, and the maximum nominations can only be three (3). Films submitted in the Animated Feature Film category also may qualify for Academy Awards in other categories, including Best Picture, provided they meet the requirements for those categories.

The 81st Academy Awards nominations will be announced on Thursday, 22 January 2009, at 5:30 a.m., PT, in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater. Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2008 will be presented on Sunday, 22 February 2009, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live by the ABC Television Network. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 200 countries worldwide.

Author Rushdie and Director Mehta Team

Mehta and Rushdie

Director Deepa Mehta is collaborating with Salman Rushdie on a feature-film adaptation of the author's 1981 novel "Midnight's Children," which won Britain's prestigious Booker literary prize. The story is narrated by a young man born on the stroke of midnight 15 August 1947, the day India won independence from Britain.

Both Mehta and Rushdie were born in India, with the filmmaker eventually making her base in Toronto, Canada, and Rushdie resides somewhere in Britain. They will co-write the screenplay and hope to roll cameras in 2010. Indian actors Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das, who starred in two earlier Mehta films, FIRE and EARTH, will star in the project.

Mehta's movie WATER was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Foreign Language Film (BFLF) category in 2007. Germany's Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's "Das Leben der Anderen" (THE LIVES OF OTHERS) captured the Oscar for best foreign-language film that year.

Digitally Restored “Rashomon” to Premiere in NYC

Machiko Kyo

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ “Monday Nights with Oscar®” series will present the East Coast premiere of the new digitally restored print of renowned filmmaker Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 masterpiece RASHOMON on Monday, November 17, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy Theater in New York City. The Academy Theater is located at 111 East 59th Street in New York City. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. All seating is unreserved.

RASHOMON won the Honorary Foreign Language Film Award for Japan and was nominated for Black-and-White Art Direction (Takashi Matsuyama, H. Matsumoto). It stars Toshiro Mifune and Machiko Kyo. This screening will feature the new restoration from the Academy Film Archive in association with the Kadokawa Culture Promotion Foundation and The Film Foundation.

A crime drama that questions the very nature of truth, RASHOMON is set in feudal Japan and depicts a violent incident from four different points of view. The film’s innovative approach and style cemented Kurosawa’s international reputation as a significant creative force and had a profound influence on cinematic storytelling, reflected in such films as THE USUAL SUSPECTS (1995) and COURAGE UNDER FIRE (1996), and on numerous works in other media.

Tickets are $5 for the general public and $3 for Academy members and students with a valid ID. Tickets may be purchased through the Academy's online ticketing system at http://www.oscars.org/. There are no transaction or processing fees. Tickets may also be purchased by mail or at the door on the night of the event (subject to availability). For additional information call (212) 821-9251 or visit www.oscars.org/events.