Cinema Eye unveils 2014 winners

Cinema Eye has announced the winners of its seventh annual awards for nonfiction film-making.

Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing was named Outstanding Feature, while Sarah Polley took home Outstanding Director for Stories We Tell.

Zachary Heinzerling’s Cutie and the Boxer led the field with three awards for Outstanding Debut, Outstanding Graphics and Animation for Art Jail and Outstanding Original Score for Yasuaki Shimizu.

Nels Bangerter was presented with the Outstanding Editing award for Let the Fire Burn by Thelma Schoomaker, who commented that she could not have cut the improvisations for The Wolf of Wall Street without her earlier work in documentary film.

The inaugural Cinema Eye Television Award, recognising collaborations between film-makers and broadcasters, went to HBO Documentary Films’ The Crash Reel by Lucy Walker, while Dave Grohl’s Sound City won the Audience Choice Prize after a record amount of more than 44,000 votes were case.

Barbara Kopple’s Harlan County, USA was presented with the Legacy Award and a clip of Kopple accepting her Academy Award was shown. Kopple commented: “Showing this Academy Award piece brought back a lot of memories.

“I think the most profound memory was that night they put all the documentarians together. And when that award came up, we criss-crossed arms together. What it said to me was I am part of the community… we have each other’s back.”

For his two HBO Documentary Films Gasland and Gasland II, film-maker Josh Fox received the Hell Yeah Prize, a periodic award given to film-makers who have created works that have significant, real-world impact.

For the full list of winners, visit Cinema Eye’s website.