Eight Documentary Shorts Get Shortlisted For 2013 Oscars

Credit: AMPAS

Which films are the official finalists for the Best Documentary (Short Subject) Oscar? Nominations are still several months away, but at least we now know the final eight films in contention.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences made the official announcement regarding the Documentary Short Subject contenders for the 86th Academy Awards, adding that three to five of the following eight finalists will earn Oscar nominations:

CaveDigger
Facing Fear
Jujitsu-ing Reality
Karama Has No Walls
The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life
Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall
Recollections
SLOMO

Jeffrey Karoff's CaveDigger tells the story of an artist who digs cathedral-like caves in the sandstone cliffs of New Mexico, while Facing Fear, the directorial debut of Jason Cohen, centers on a gay man who was attacked by a gang of neo-Nazis as a teen, only to encounter one of his attackers 25 years later. Also among the nominees are Chetin Chabuk's film Jujitsu-ing Reality, about screenwriter Scott Lew's battle with Lou Gehrig's disease; Sara Ishaq's harrowing film on the 2011 Yemeni Revolution, Karama Has No Walls; Malcolm Clarke's portrait of 109 year-old holocaust survivor Alice Herz Sommer, The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life; and Edgar Barens' documentary, Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall, about the final months in the life of a terminally ill prisoner at the Iowa State Penitentiary; Nathanael Carton's Recollections focuses on the survivors of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami; and Joshua Izenberg's SLOMO, a documentary about Dr. John Kitchin, a neurologist who abandons his career to take up rollerblading along the Pacific Coast.

Voters from the Academy’s Documentary Branch viewed this year’s 40 eligible entries and submitted their ballots to PricewaterhouseCoopers for tabulation.

Via: Indiewire / The Hollywood Reporter