In Contention

Tag: Music by Prudence

  • Drama continues well into the Oscars

    OscarsFrom Salon, RE: that bizarre documentary short acceptance speech mishap:

    What happened was the director and I had a bad difference over the direction of the film that resulted in a lawsuit that has settled amicably out of court. But there have been all these events around the Oscars, and I wasn’t invited to any of them. And he’s not speaking to me. So we weren’t even able to discuss ahead of the time who would be the one person allowed to speak if we won. And then, as I’m sure you saw, when we won, he raced up there to accept the award. And his mother took her cane and blocked me. So I couldn’t get up there very fast.

  • OSCAR GUIDE: Best Documentary Short

    Prudence Mabhena in Music by PrudenceMuch like the live action and animated short fields, in order for voters to cast their ballots for the documentary short category, they have to attend screenings of all the nominees. This tends to make these categories a bit tougher to predict, because they are frequently immune to noise in the media. You screen, you vote.

    However, if you’re aware of what the committee likes, you can eventually find the pulse. In all these fields, these committees tend to appreciate doing a lot within the time frame constrictions of a short film, which is why animated shorts that resonate, live action shorts with high production value and documentary shorts that succinctly tackle a subject always come out on top.

    The nominees are:

    “China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province” (Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neil)
    “The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardener” (Daniel Junge and Henry Ansbacher)
    “The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant” (Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert)
    “Music by Prudence” (Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett)
    “Rabbit à la Berlin” (Bartek Konopka and Anna Wydra)

    (more…)