Cinema Eye Honors Nonfiction Moviemakers

Hollywood’s awards season may have been underwhelming this year, what with the cancellation of the Golden Globes and Academy Awards telecast receiving its lowest ratings ever. Recognizing the value of a celebration of moviemaking, IndiePixFilms.com has launched the Cinema Eye awards expressly to reward one of film’s more traditionally underrated genres—the documentary. The inaugural ceremony will be held Tuesday, March 18, 2008 at the IFC Center in downtown Manhattan. IndiePixFilms.com will present the awards in collaboration with Thom Powers, documentary programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival, and veteran producer AJ Schnack.

With the Cinema Eye awards, IndiePixFilms.com hopes to capitalize on the box office buzz and cachet that have been building for documentaries in recent years. At the same time, the independent distributor of online films looks to continue building the audience for nonfiction films. This year’s nominees for the Cinema Eye awards include both well-known and more obscure fare. Among the candidates vying for the evening’s Audience Choice Prize are Seth Gordon’s The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, Charles Ferguson’s No End in Sight and Michael Moore’s SiCKO. Two lesser-known films lead the pack with six nominations apiece: Philip Gronig’s Into Great Silence, which chronicles a monastery in the French Alps, and Jason Kohn’s Manda Bala (Send a Bullet), probing corruption in Brazil. Tony Kaye’s harrowing abortion documentary Lake of Fire received five nominations—the second most number of any of the competition’s documentaries.

For more information, visit www.cinemaeyeawards.com.