We’re still nearly five months away from the Oscar nominations getting announced, but the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences is still keeping busy as it whittles down some of the competition for several categories. Today, the organization revealed the eight documentary shorts that will compete for the Documentary Short Subject award.
The Documentary Branch had 40 titles to view before cutting the list down. According to the Academy, three to five of the shorts will eventually be nominated for the award.
As The Hollywood Reporter notes, the subjects for the eight shorts are as varied as possible. For example, Michael Clarke’s The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life (Reed Entertainment) shares the memories of Alice Herz Sommer, a 109-year-old Holocaust survivor. SLOMO (Big Young Films/Runaway Films), directed by Joshua Izenberg, focuses on a neurologist who decides to give up his profession so he can go rollerblading.
The other six shorts on the shortlist are:
Karama Has No Walls (Hot Spot Films) - a look at the 2011 Yemeni Revolution
CaveDigger (Karoffilms) - about artist Ra Paulette, who works in the New Mexico sandstone cliffs
Facing Fear (Jason Cohen Productions, LLC) - about a gay man who was attacked as a teen and meets one of the attackers years later
Jujitsu-ing Reality (Sobini Films) - a look at Scott Lew, a screenwriter with Lou Gehrig's disease
Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall (Prison Terminal LLC) - a look at a terminally ill prisoner at the Iowa State Penitentiary
Recollections (notrac productions) - about the survivors of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake
On Tuesday, the Academy announced the 76 films will be considered for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.
Nominations are announced on Jan. 16 and the awards are handed out on March 2.