Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s animated documentary “Flee” led all films in nominations for the 15th annual Cinema Eye Honors, which were announced on Wednesday.
“Flee,” which is also Denmark’s entry in the Oscars Best International Feature Film race, landed seven nominations, including Outstanding Feature Film. Its competitors in that category are two other international films, Jessica Kingdon’s “Ascension” and Jessica Beshir’s “Faya Dayi”; two music documentaries, Questlove’s “Summer of Soul” and Todd Haynes’ “The Velvet Underground”; and E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s “The Rescue.”
The Outstanding Direction category includes Rasmussen, Kingdon, Beshir, Questlove, Nanfu Wang for “In the Same Breath” and Robert Greene for “Procession.”
The seven nominations for “Flee” also included production, score, sound design, graphic design/animation and the Audience Choice Prize.
“Ascension” and “Faya Dayi,” which explore life in China and Ethiopia, respectively, each received five nominations, as did “The Rescue,” about the mission to free a trapped youth soccer team from a flooded cave in Thailand. “The Velvet Underground” received four.
In the Heterodox category, which honors films that blur the boundary between fiction and nonfiction, the nominees were “The Souvenir Part II,” “Bo Burnham: Inside,” “A Cop Movie,” “The Inheritance” and “El Planeta.”
HBO led all distributors/broadcasters with 16 nominations, followed by Hulu with 12 and National Geographic Documentary Films and Neon/Super LTD with 11 each.
Nominations in the CEH broadcast categories were previously announced.
Winners will be announced at the 15th annual Cinema Eye Honors awards ceremony on Thursday, Jan. 12, 2022 at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, New York.
The Cinema Eye Honors is a New York-based organization that was established in 2008 to honor all facets of nonfiction filmmaking. In its early years, CEH tended to honor more adventurous documentaries than the ones nominated by the Oscars – but as the Academy’s Documentary Branch has grown in size and admitted younger and more international members, its choices have themselves become bolder. Over the last five years, almost 60% of the Oscar documentary nominees were first nominated by Cinema Eye.
The list of nominees:
Outstanding Nonfiction Feature
Ascension
Directed and Produced by Jessica Kingdon
Produced by Kira Simon-Kennedy and Nathan Truesdell
Faya Dayi
Directed and Produced by Jessica Beshir
Flee
Directed by Jonas Poher Rasmussen
Produced by Monica Hellström and Signe Byrge Sorensen
The Rescue
Directed and Produced by E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin
Produced by P.J. van Sandwjik and John Battsek
Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
Directed by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson
Produced by Joseph Patel, Robert Fyvolent and David Dinerstein
The Velvet Underground
Directed and Produced by Todd Haynes
Produced by Christine Vachon, Julie Goldman, Christopher Clements, Carolyn Hepburn
Outstanding Direction
Ascension
Jessica Kingdon
Faya Dayi
Jessica Beshir
Flee
Jonas Poher Rasmussen
In the Same Breath
Nanfu Wang
Procession
Robert Greene
Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson
Outstanding Editing
Homeroom
Kristina Mohwani and Rebecca Adorno
The Rescue
Bob Eisenhardt
Roadrunner: A Film about Anthony Bourdain
Eileen Meyer and Aaron Wickenden
Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
Joshua Pearson
The Velvet Underground
Affonso Gonçalves and Adam Kurnitz
Outstanding Production
The First Wave
Matthew Heineman, Jenna Millman and Leslie Norville
Flee
Monica Hellström and Signe Byrge Sorensen
In the Same Breath
Nanfu Wang, Jialing Zhang, Julie Goldman, Christopher Clements and Carolyn Hepburm
President
Signe Byrge Sorensen and Joslyn Barnes
The Rescue
E. Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin, P.J. van Sandwijk and John Battsek
Outstanding Cinematography
All Light, Everywhere
Corey Hughes
Ascension
Jessica Kingdon and Nathan Truesdell
Cusp
Isabel Bethencourt
Faya Dayi
Jessica Beshir
The Rescue
David Katznelson, Picha Srisansanee and Ian Seabrook
Outstanding Original Score
All Light, Everywhere
Dan Deacon
Ascension
Dan Deacon
Flee
Uno Helmersson
Julia
Rachel Portman
maini – towards the ocean, towards the shore
Thad Kellstadt
Procession
Keegan DeWitt
Outstanding Sound Design
All Light, Everywhere
Udit Duseja
Faya Dayi
Tom Efinger and Abigail Savage
Flee
Edward Björner and Tormod Ringnes
Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
Jimmy Douglass and Paul Hsu
The Velvet Underground
Leslie Shatz and Jahn Sood
Outstanding Graphic Design/Animation
Becoming Cousteau
Daniel Rutledge
Flee
Kenneth Ladekjær
Rebel Heards
Una Lorenzen and Emma Berliner
The Sparks Brothers
Joseph Wallace
Wojnarowicz: F*ck You F*ggot F*cker
Grant Nellessen and Andrew Rose
Outstanding Debut
Ascension
Directed by Jessica Kingdon
A Cop Movie
Directed by Alfonso Ruizpalacios
Faya Dayi
Directed by Jessica Beshir
Jacinta
Directed by Jessica Earnshaw
Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
Directed by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson
Outstanding Nonfiction Short
Águilas
Directed by Kristy Guevara-Flanagan and Maite Zubiaurre
A Broken House
Directed by Jimmy Goldblum
Don’t Go Tellin’ Your Momma
Directed by Topaz Jones and rubberband
Terror Contagion
Directed by Laura Poitras
Three Songs for Benazir
Directed by Elizabeth Mirzaei and Gulistan Mirzaei
Audience Choice Prize
Becoming Cousteau
Directed by Liz Garbus
Billie Eilish – The World’s a Little Blurry
Directed by R.J. Cutler
Flee
Directed by Jonas Poher Rasmussen
Homeroom
Directed by Peter Nicks
Julia
Directed by Julie Cohen and Betsy West
Lily Topples the World
Directed by Jeremy Workman
Listening to Kenny G
Directed by Penny Lane
The Rescue
Directed by E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin
Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go For It
Directed by Mariem Pérez Riera
Roadrunner: A Film about Anthony Bourdain
Directed by Morgan Neville
The Sparks Brothers
Directed by Edgar Wright
Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
Directed by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson
Try Harder!
Directed by Debbie Lum
The Velvet Underground
Directed by Todd Haynes
Writing With Fire
Directed by Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh
Spotlight
Fruits of Labor
Directed by Emily Cohen Ibañez
The Neutral Ground
Directed by CJ Hunt
North by Current
Directed by Angelo Madsen Minax
Socks on Fire
Directed by Bo McGuire
Two Gods
Directed by Zeshawn Ali
Heterodox
Bo Burnham: Inside
Directed by Bo Burnham
A Cop Movie
Directed by Alfonso Ruizpalacios
The Inheritance
Directed by Ephraim Asili
El Planeta
Directed by Amalia Ulman
The Souvenir Part II
Directed by Johanna Hogg
The Unforgettables (Non-Competitive Honor)
Flee
Amin
Homeroom
Denilson Garibo
Introducing, Selma Blair
Selma Blair
Jacinta
Jacinta Hunt
Lily Topples the World
Lily Hevesh
Listening to Kenny G
Kenny G
Mr. Bachmann and His Class
Mr. Bachmann
My Name is Pauli Murray
Pauli Murray
Not Going Quietly
Ady Barkan
Procession
Joe Eldred, Mike Foreman, Ed Gavagan, Dan Laurine, Michael Sandridge, & Tom Viviano
The Rescue
Rick Stanton
Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go For It
Rita Moreno
Roadrunner: A Film about Anthony Bourdain
Anthony Bourdain
The Sparks Brothers
Ron Mael and Russell Mael
Writing With Fire
Meera Nevi