Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi Leads Independent Spirit Award Documentary Nominees

'Incorruptible' (Little Monster Films)

Nominees for the 31st annual Film Independent Spirit Awards were announced this week, and as usual nonfiction works are limited to their own specific categories, but at least there are two of them. Also, the contenders this year are pretty stellar.

Plus, nominees for the Piaget Producers Award include Rebecca Green, who was a consulting producer on last year’s Hotline and Laura D. Smith, who produced last year’s Holbrook/Twain: An American Odyssey.

Here are the nine titles in the Best Documentary and Truer Than Fiction categories — both of which honor different works by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi — with links to our review of each doc where we have one:

BEST DOCUMENTARY

(T)error
Directors/Producers: Lyric R. Cabral & David Felix Sutcliffe
Producer: Christopher St. John
Nonfics Review — ★★★★

Best of Enemies
Directors/Producers: Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville

Heart of Dog
Director/Producer: Laurie Anderson
Producer: Dan Janvey

The Look of Silence
Director: Joshua Oppenheimer
Producer: Signe Byrge Sørensen

Meru
Directors/Producers: Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
Producer: Shannon Ethridge
Nonfics Review — ★★★

The Russian Woodpecker
Director/Producer: Chad Gracia
Producers: Ram Devineni, Mike Lerner
Nonfics Review — ★★★★

TRUER THAN FICTION AWARD

Among the Believers
Directors: Mohammed Ali Naqvi and Hemal Trivedi

Incorruptible
Director: Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi

A Woman Like Me
Directors: Elizabeth Giamatti and Alex Sichel

The winners will be announced in a ceremony held February 27th.

(Editor in Chief)

Christopher Campbell is the founding editor of Nonfics.