‘Collective’ Director Explains Why Romanian Officials ‘Were Not Happy’ About Oscar Attention
TheWrap awards magazine: Alexander Nanau discusses his searing film about a nightclub fire, nominated for both Best Documentary and Best International Feature Film
A version of this story about “Collective” first appeared in the Down to the Wire issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine.
The Oscar category of Best Documentary was once a reliable safe haven for homegrown American films, but in recent years it has gone international. Since 2015, there have been at least one, and often two, non-English-language titles among the nominees. Films like Italy’s “Fire at Sea,” France’s “Faces Places,” and Brazil’s “The Edge of Democracy” have told stories not with an outsider’s eye, but from within the counties and cultures in which they take place.
But no film had ever been nominated for Best Documentary and Best International Feature Film (formerly known as Best Foreign Language Film) until North Macedonia’s “Honeyland” turned that trick last year.