Contenders Film: Documentary Kicks Off Today With 20 Titles Aiming To Expand And Explain Our Worlds
04.12.2022 - 19:31
/ deadline.com
Deadline’s Contenders Film: Documentary awards-season event kicks off Sunday at 8 a.m. PT and promises to open up distant lands and even a distant planet—no passport required.
The terrain covered by the cast and creatives from our 20 participating films astonishes with its variety and range: an enclave of Delhi, India in All That Breathes, a remote section of Paraguay in Eami, and possibly an even more remote outpost of the Brazilian rainforest in Wildcat. Moscow is the ultimate destination of Navalny, the documentary about Russia’s imprisoned and poisoned opposition leader, and Descendant takes us to a neighborhood of Mobile, Alabama settled by survivors of the last slave ship known to have navigated U.S. waters.
About 5,600 miles separate Moscow from Mobile, mere inches apart compared to the far-flung rendezvous point of Good Night Oppy, about NASA’s incredible mission that dispatched two rovers to Mars — a voyage of roughly 35 million miles.
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In a sense, Moonage Daydream ventures to outer space as well, to explore the art and music of David Bowie, the rock star known for inhabiting the guises of Ziggy Stardust and Major Tom.
Contenders Film: Documentary thrums to the sound not only of Bowie, but a contemporary classic in Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song. The beat goes on in The Return of Tanya Tucker: Featuring Brandi Carlile, Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues, and a pop star-actress who bravely shares her mental health struggles in Selena Gomez: My Mind and Me.
The panel lineup boasts some of documentary’s most established talents: Oscar nominees Brett Morgen of Moonage Daydream and Tia Lessin of The Janes (co-directed with Emma Pildes).