New Oscars Documentary Rules Have Already Qualified More Than 80 Docs

More than 80 documentaries have already qualified for this year’s Academy Awards, according to new rules put in place by the Academy’s Documentary Branch. But at a time when many of the members of that branch are self-isolating at home with free time, very few of those films are available for voters to watch. For this year only, a film qualifies for the Academy Awards if it is chosen by two film festivals from an Academy list of nine early-year fests: Sundance, South by Southwest, Tribeca, Full Frame, Hot Docs, Berlin, San Francisco, CPH:DOX and the True/False Film Festival. That rule holds regardless of whether the festivals actually took place. (Sundance, Berlin and True/False did; the others were postponed or canceled or took place virtually.) Also Read: Academy Allows Documentaries to Qualify for Oscars at Film Festivals Films must still meet other eligibility requirements and must be submitted to the Academy for viewing on the members-only Academy Screen Room, so not every doc that qualified via film festivals will end up in the running. But dozens of films have been selected by two or more of the festivals, including the Sundance winner “Boys State,” Kirsten Johnson’s playful “Dick Johnson Is...

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