The Academy Awards, mainly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the film industry. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), in recognition of excellence in cinematic achievements as assessed by the Academy's voting membership. The Academy Awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment industry in the United States and worldwide. The Oscar statuette depicts a knight rendered in the Art Deco style.
The Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film is an award for documentary films. In 1941, the first awards for feature-length documentaries were bestowed as Special Awards to Kukan and Target for Tonight. They have since been bestowed competitively each year, with the exception of 1946. Copies of every winning film are held by the Academy Film Archive.
Kenneth Lauren Burns is an American filmmaker known for his documentary films and television series, many of which chronicle American history and culture. His work is often produced in association with WETA-TV and/or the National Endowment for the Humanities and distributed by PBS.
The National Film Board of Canada is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary films, animation, web documentaries, and alternative dramas. In total, the NFB has produced over 13,000 productions since its inception, which have won over 5,000 awards. The NFB reports to the Parliament of Canada through the Minister of Canadian Heritage. It has bilingual production programs and branches in English and French, including multicultural-related documentaries.
Sarah Ellen Polley is a Canadian filmmaker, writer, political activist and retired actress. She first garnered attention as a child actress for her role as Ramona Quimby in the television series Ramona, based on Beverly Cleary's books. This subsequently led to her role as Sara Stanley in the Canadian television series Road to Avonlea (1990–1996). She has starred in many feature films, including The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), Exotica (1994), The Sweet Hereafter (1997), Guinevere (1999), Go (1999), The Weight of Water (2000), No Such Thing (2001), My Life Without Me (2003), Dawn of the Dead (2004), Splice (2009), and Mr. Nobody (2009).
Fisher Stevens is an American actor, director, producer and writer. As an actor, he is best known for his portrayals of Ben in Short Circuit (1986) and Short Circuit 2 (1988). He is a documentary filmmaker winning the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for The Cove (2010). He also directed the documentaries Crazy Love (2007), and Before the Flood (2016).
Jafar Panâhi is an Iranian film director, screenwriter, and film editor, commonly associated with the Iranian New Wave film movement. After several years of making short films and working as an assistant director for fellow Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, Panahi achieved international recognition with his feature film debut, The White Balloon (1995). The film won the Caméra d'Or at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival, the first major award an Iranian film won at Cannes.
Song Il-gon is a South Korean film director and screenwriter known for his internationally award-winning early short films, and later feature films such as Spider Forest (2004) and Feathers in the Wind (2005). Long more popular abroad than in South Korea, Song was the first Korean filmmaker to win an award at the Cannes Film Festival.
Marshall Curry is an Oscar-winning American documentary director, producer, cinematographer and editor. His films include Street Fight, Racing Dreams, If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front, Point and Shoot, and A Night at the Garden. His first fiction film was the Academy Award-winning short film The Neighbors' Window (2019).
Making Overtures: The Story of a Community Orchestra is a 1985 Canadian short documentary film directed by Larry Weinstein. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.
William Oliver Stone is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. Stone is known as a controversial but acclaimed director, tacking subjects ranging from the Vietnam war, and American politics to musical biopics and crime dramas. He has received numerous accolades including four Academy Awards, a BAFTA Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and five Golden Globe Awards.
Cynthia Wade is an American television, commercial and film director, producer and cinematographer based in New York City. She has directed documentaries on social issues including Shelter Dogs in 2003 about animal welfare and Freeheld in 2007 about LGBT rights as well as television commercials and web campaigns. She has won over 40 film festival awards, won an Oscar in 2008, and was nominated for her second Oscar in 2013.
Inside Job is a 2010 American documentary film, directed by Charles Ferguson, about the late-2000s financial crisis. Ferguson, who began researching in 2008, said the film is about "the systemic corruption of the United States by the financial services industry and the consequences of that systemic corruption", amongst them conflicts of interest of academic research, which led to improved disclosure standards by the American Economic Association. In five parts, the film explores how changes in the policy environment and banking practices helped create the financial crisis.
Vishvanath Buddhika Keerthisena, also known as Boodee Keerthisena, is a Sri Lankan filmmaker. He began his career drawing comics before moving into painting, dress design, and visual arts. He moved into music in the late 1980s, and performed in a band called "Boo-Dee and the Woo-Zees" (1986–1992) as the lead singer.
Dorothy Fadiman is an American documentary filmmaker, director, and producer.
Małgorzata Szumowska is a Polish film director, screenwriter and producer, born in Kraków.
Pamela B. Green is a two-time Emmy-nominated, award-winning American film director and producer known for her work in feature film titles and motion graphics. She is the director, writer, editor and producer of the documentary Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché. In 2020, she was awarded the Jane Mercer Researcher of the Year award at the FOCAL International awards for her work on Be Natural.
Penny Lane is an American independent filmmaker, known for her documentary films. Her humor and unconventional approach to the documentary form, including the use of archival Super 8 footage and YouTube videos, have earned her critical acclaim.
Feras Fayyad is a Syrian film director, producer, and writer. Fayyad best known for his 2017 documentary Last Men in Aleppo and his 2019 documentary The Cave, both films earned him critical acclaim and numerous awards and nominations including two Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, making him the first Syrian director to be nominated for an Oscar. Fayyad also won an Emmy award for Best Current Affairs Documentary, was nominated for a creative Emmy for best writing and directing, and has received two George Foster Peabody awards and a nomination for Outstanding Directorial Achievement from the Directors Guild of America for his movie The Cave.
Fork Films was an American film production and television production company founded in 2007, by Abigail Disney and Gini Reticker. The company primarily produced documentary films focusing on social issues, and select narrative films.
