Christopher Campbell

Cinema Eye Honors Dominated By ‘Citizenfour,’ ‘20,000 Days on Earth’ and ‘Boyhood’

The 8th annual Cinema Eye Honors were held last night, and Citizenfour was the big winner with four awards, including the top prize for Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking. 20,000 Days on Earth was the only other film to receive two of the honors, although it tied for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography with Virunga.

I’m going to admit that in only one of the categories I was permitted to vote in was my choice a winner — and there again only in a tie. But I’m hardly disappointed. Aside from not being a huge fan of Audience Choice Prize winner Keep On Keepin’ On and being continually conflicted about my feelings on Debut Feature honoree Finding Vivian Maier, I’m happy with the results. The Cinema Eye Honors are a tough organization to have favorites in, as they tend to nominate only really great films all around.

I also want to slip in that I’m especially glad that 1971 picked up the Spotlight Award. If I had been able to participate in that category, it might have received my vote. It’s not been talked about much prior to this, so hopefully the honor helps when it officially opens next month.

Earlier this week, additional special Cinema Eye Honors were bestowed to the classic Paris Is Burning, which received the Legacy Award, and to the coming-of-age drama Boyhood, which can add the Heterodox Award to its gigantic pile of trophies. On the latter, Richard Linklater had this to say about it being recognized by a nonfiction-honoring organization (as quoted by Filmmaker Magazine):

“I don’t even call it ‘a blurry line’… I’ve never really drawn a particular line between documentary and fiction.”

Continuing, he said, “[Boyhood] is not a documentary but it’s certainly a document. It’s not fiction really, because it all happened, believe it or not. My storytelling impulse was very autobiographical, trying to examine childhood and in the process I was examining parenthood. And you talked about the intimate relation between subject and filmmaker, that’s what this was. I was collaborating with these actors over such a long period of time, and they were collaborating with me so openly, that, in a way, I am sort of documenting time as their lives changed and incorporating that. So to me it was a very blurry area and kind of a wonderful one.”

Congratulations to all the winners and also to the nominees for being recognized in some way. Here is the full list of winners, via the Hollywood Reporter:

Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking
Citizenfour
Directed by Laura Poitras
Produced by Laura Poitras, Mathilde Bonnefoy and Dirk Wilutzky

Outstanding Achievement in Direction
Laura Poitras
Citizenfour

Outstanding Achievement in Editing
Mathilde Bonnefoy
Citizenfour

Outstanding Achievement in Production
Laura Poitras, Mathilde Bonnefoy and Dirk Wilutzky
Citizenfour

Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography (tie)
Erik Wilson
20,000 Days on Earth

Franklin Dow and Orlando von Einsiedel
Virunga

Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Films Made for Television
The Price of Gold
Directed by Nanette Burstein
Produced by Libby Geist
For ESPN/30 for 30: John Dahl, Connor Schell, Bill Simmons