Nominees for the 82nd Academy Awards Have Been Announced
Nominations for the 82nd Academy Awards were announced today by Academy President Tom Sherak and actress Anne Hathaway. As usual five feature length and five short documentary films have been nominated for Oscars. The awards ceremonies show, this year co-hosted by Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin, is set to air on ABC in the U.S. and CTV in Canada on March 7 at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET.
Below are the nominees in both the feature and short documentary categories.
Documentary (Feature)
Burma VJ Anders Østergaard and Lise Lense-Møller
Synopsis:
Armed with small handycams undercover Video Journalists in Burma keep up the flow of news from their closed country despite risking torture and life in jail. Their material is smuggled out of Burma and broadcast back via satellite.
Trailer:
The Cove Nominees to be determined
Synopsis:
The Cove exposes not only the tragedy of dolphin slaughtering in Japan, but also the dangerously high levels of mercury in dolphin meat and seafood, the cruelty in capturing dolphins for entertainment, and the depletion of our oceans fisheries by worldwide seafood consumption. We also see how the mandate of the International Whaling Commission has been manipulated by the Japanese Fisheries Agency for its benefit and its subsequent effect on the rest of the world.
Trailer:
Food, Inc. Robert Kenner and Elise Pearlstein
Synopsis:
From the producers of An Inconvenient Truth, this film takes a pointed look beyond the dinner table at how your food is grown, processed and sold. For many, you’ll never look at dinner the same way again.
Trailer:
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith
Synopsis:
1971–Daniel Ellsberg, a top-level Vietnam War strategist, concludes the war is based on a decade of lies. He leaks 7,000 pages of top-secret documents to the The New York Times, a daring act of conscience that leads directly to Watergate, President Nixon’s resignation and the end of the Vietnam War.
Trailer:
Which Way Home Rebecca Cammisa
Synopsis:
As the United States continues to build a wall between itself and Mexico, Which Way Home shows the personal side of immigration through the eyes of children who face harrowing dangers with enormous courage and resourcefulness as they endeavor to make it to the United States.
Trailer:
Documentary (Short Subject)
China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill
Synopsis:
Sichuan, China. In the aftermath of the massive earthquake that rocked this central region of China, several communities are in mourning for the children they lost. At Fuxin Primary School, where 127 students died, families place framed photographs of dead boys and girls in a makeshift memorial next to the rubble, burning incense and symbolic paper currency to honor them…
Full length short film:
The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner Daniel Junge and Henry Ansbacher
Synopsis:
Documentary following assisted suicide ballot initiative in Washington State.
Trailer:
Not available.
The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert
Synopsis:
This 40-minute documentary focuses on the workers of the General Motors Assembly Plant in Moraine, Ohio – which opened in 1981, and churned out an average of 280,000 small trucks and SUVs a year – from the announcement a year ago that the Plant will be closing, to its last day on December 23, 2008, just two days before Christmas. While the workers are shocked that they will be losing their jobs, we quickly see they are also losing much more: the pride they share in their work, the camaraderie built through the years, and the shared concerns about what their collective futures will hold. As the major industry in Moraine closes its doors for good, many see its demise as an indication of the changing American manufacturing landscape, which seems to be dying as products are increasingly being made elsewhere. The film offers a snapshot of a moment in America where we may be seeing the end of the blue-collar middle class.
Trailer:
Music by Prudence Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett
Synopsis:
Zimbabwean singer songwriter Prudence Mabhena, age twenty-one, was born severely disabled into a society where disabilities carry the taint of witchcraft; she is more likely to spend her life hidden away in a tiny hut than on a stage in the center of a city. Her story is the story of many of the disabled kids of Africa, a story of abandonment and abuse. But Prudence and her seven young band members, all disabled, have managed to overcome stereotypes and inspire the same people that once saw them as a curse.
Trailer:
Not available
Rabbit à la Berlin Bartek Konopka and Anna Wydra
Synopsis:
The untold story about wild rabbits which lived between the Berlin Walls. For 28 years Death Zone was their safest home. Full of grass, no predators, guards protecting them from human disturbance. They were closed but happy. When their population grew up to thousands, guards started to remove them. But rabbits survived and stayed there. Unfortunately one day the wall fell down. Rabbits had to abandon comfortable system. They moved to West Berlin and have been living there in a few colonies since then. They are still learning how to live in the free world, same as we – the citizens of Eastern Europe.
Trailer:
