| Knife Skills | |
|---|---|
 Film poster | |
| Directed by | Thomas Lennon |
| Distributed by | The New Yorker |
Release date |
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Running time | 40 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Knife Skills is a 2017 American documentary film directed by Thomas Lennon. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject at the 90th Academy Awards. [1] [2] It received generally positive reviews from critics. [3]
The film focuses on people's transition from prison life to the outside world through Edwins Leadership & Restaurant Institute in Cleveland, Ohio. The goal of the institute is to teach former prisoners life skills and to give them focus in order to reduce recidivism rates. The film follows the first class of students through their training and the opening of the restaurant by founder Brandon Chrostowski [4] [5]
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment industry in the United States. Given annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), the awards are a recognition of excellence in cinematic achievements of primarily American films, as assessed by the Academy's voting membership. The various category winners are awarded a copy of a golden statuette as a trophy, officially called the "Academy Award of Merit", although more commonly referred to by its nickname, the "Oscar." The statuette, depicting a knight rendered in the Art Deco style, was originally sculpted by Los Angeles artist George Stanley from a design sketch by art director Cedric Gibbons.
The Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film is an award given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) as part of the annual Academy Awards, or Oscars, since the 5th Academy Awards, covering the year 1931–32, to the present.
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.
This is a list of films by year that have received an Academy Award together with the other nominations for best documentary short film. Following the Academy's practice, the year listed for each film is the year of release: the awards are announced and presented early in the following year. Copies of every winning film are held by the Academy Film Archive. Ten films are shortlisted before nominations are announced.
Agnès Varda was a Belgian-born French film director, screenwriter, photographer, and artist. Her pioneering work was central to the development of the widely influential French New Wave film movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Her films focused on achieving documentary realism, addressing women's issues, and other social commentary, with a distinctive experimental style.
James Bertrand Longley is an American filmmaker.
Thomas Furneaux Lennon is a documentary filmmaker. He was born in Washington D.C. and graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in 1968.
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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.
Minding the Gap is a 2018 documentary film directed by Bing Liu. It was produced by Liu and Diane Moy Quon through Kartemquin Films. It chronicles the lives and friendships of three young men growing up in Rockford, Illinois, united by their love of skateboarding. The film received critical acclaim, winning the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Filmmaking at the Sundance Film Festival, and was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 91st Academy Awards.
Brandon Chrostowski is an American chef, restaurateur, and politician currently residing in Cleveland, Ohio. He is the founder, president, and chief executive officer of EDWINS Leadership and Restaurant Institute, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that acts as both a French restaurant and a culinary institute located in Cleveland's Shaker Square. It trains and is staffed largely by former prison inmates and was the subject of the 2017 Academy Award-nominated documentary short, Knife Skills. Chrostowski is also a certified sommelier and a fromager. He ran for Mayor of Cleveland in 2017.
American Factory is a 2019 American documentary film directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, about Chinese company Fuyao's factory in Moraine, a city near Dayton, Ohio, that occupies Moraine Assembly, a shuttered General Motors plant. The film had its festival premiere at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. It is distributed by Netflix and is the first film acquired by Barack and Michelle Obama's production company, Higher Ground Productions. It won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
Elvira Lind is a Danish film director based in New York City.
Martin Desmond Roe is a British-American film and television director, writer, and producer. He is best known for Buzkashi Boys (2012), Kobe Bryant's Muse (2015), Breaking2 (2017), Tom vs Time (2018), and We are the Champions (2020). Roe is the founder and Creative Director of Dirty Robber, a Los Angeles-based production company.
Impact Partners is an American film production and television production company founded in 2007, by Dan Cogan and Geralyn Dreyfous. The company primarily produces documentary films focusing on social issues.
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.