Visages, Villages (“Faces, Places”), co-produced by Agnès Varda, a Brusseler born and bred, and the artist JR, is one of 15 documentaries pre-screened for the Oscars. These are on a shortlist, which was revealed on Thursday. Une suite qui dérange (“An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power”), revolving around environmental issues, involves the former Presidential candidate Al Gore, who also stars in it.
Also on the list are City of Ghosts and Last Men in Aleppo both about the war in Syria. Produced by the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, Human Flow speaks of some 65 million refugees compelled, in recent years, to leave their respective countries, owing in particular to wars in the Middle East and Africa. Icarus, the documentary, with the air of a geopolitical thriller, disseminated on Netflix, tells of Russian cheating at the London Olympic Games in 2012, and the Winter Games in Sochi in 2014.
Amongst the 15 pre-screened titles, Jane is devoted to the famous primatologist, Jane Goodall, and LA 92 chronicles the riots in Los Angeles, which followed the acquittal of police who had literally beaten Rodney King in 1992.
170 works were nominated for feature-film documentaries. The five finalists will be announced on January 23rd, at the same time as the rest of the nominations for the 90th Oscar (Academy Awards) ceremony, due to take place on March 4th.
The Brussels Times
