Most awards are about glitz, glamor, pomp, and circumstance, but—true to the art that they represent—the Cinema Eye Honors center around craft and community. Now in its tenth year, the Cinema Eye Honors is a true celebration of documentary filmmakers, DPs, editors, and even subjects, during which the documentary community comes together to support one another rather than to compete.
It should come as no surprise that the selections made are of the highest quality, and that a true documentarian's documentary, Cameraperson by Kirsten Johnson, was awarded Outstanding Nonfiction Feature, Outstanding Editing, and Outstanding Cinematography this year. The film itself is an homage to the art of documentary filmmaking, as a kind of cinematographic memoir montage of Johnson's 20-plus-year career shooting nonfiction films.
A true documentarian's documentary, Cameraperson by Kirsten Johnson, was awarded Outstanding Nonfiction Feature.
A prize unique to the Cinema Eye Honors is the Heterodox Award, which honors those films that "actively blur the line between narrative fiction and documentary." For the first time in Cinema Eye's history, this award went to a documentary that was also nominated in strictly nonfiction categories (Outstanding Cinematography and Outstanding Original Score), as opposed to a fictional film that takes on nonfiction qualities: All These Sleepless Nights, directed by Michal Marczak. The previous two winners were the "docufiction" Taxi, directed by Jafar Panahi, and fully fictional drama, Boyhood, directed by Richard Linklater.
The full list of 2017 winners is below.
Kirsten Johnson's 'Cameraperson'
Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking
Outstanding Achievement in Direction
Ezra Edelman, OJ: Made in America
Outstanding Achievement in Editing
Nels Bangerter, Cameraperson
Outstanding Achievement in Production
Ezra Edelman and Caroline Waterlow, OJ: Made in America
Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography
Kirsten Johnson, Cameraperson
Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Score
David Byrne, LeeAnn Rossi and Aaron Rosenblum, Contemporary Color
Outstanding Achievement in Graphic Design or Animation
Keith Maitland and Craig Staggs, Tower
Outstanding Achievement in a Debut Feature Film
Hooligan Sparrow (Nanfu Wang)
Audience Choice Prize
Gleason
Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Films Made for Television
Making a Murderer
Spotlight Award
Those Who Jump
Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Short Filmmaking
La Laguna
Heterodox Award
All These Sleepless Nights
Legacy Award
The Times of Harvey Milk
