Oscar documentaries announced

The Academy's domcumentary branch have unvelied the 12 films that will be eligible for next year's hotly contested Oscar race.

Nov 18 2004

The early contenders for the 2004 Best Documentary Oscar race have been announced, and Kevin MacDonald's 'Touching The Void' has controversially made the cut.

Despite the fact that, as much of the action revolves around re-enactments of a doomed mountain-climbing expedition, the film is claimed to be more docudrama than documentary, 'Touching', will nevertheless be considered for the final five.

MacDonald's film faces stiff competition from Morgan Spurlock's hugely successful 'Super Size Me', as well as 'Riding Giants', Stacy Peralta's superb follow-up to 'Dogtown and Z-Boys'.

Other early favourites include Ross Kauffman's 'Born Into Brothels', a hard-hitting account of Calcutta's child prostitutes, and Jessica Yu's 'In The Realms Of The Unreal', the amazing tale of a Chicago janitor who wrote an epic 15,000-page fantasy novel.

The list is rounded out by 'Home of the Brave', 'Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train', 'The Ritchie Boys', 'The Story of Weeping Camel', 'Tell Them Who You Are', 'Tupac: Resurrection', and 'Twist of Faith'.

One film that will be conspicuous by its absence however, is the most successful documentary of all time, 'Farenheit 9/11', having been withdrawn from the category in September by Michael Moore.

The chubby documentarian claimed that his decision was designed to open up the race, but there can be little doubt that 'Farenheit's' absence from the line-up takes much of the sting out of the contest (while at the same time depriving us the sight of yet another Moore rant drowned out by Academy music should he have won).

Other notable absentees from the list include the excellent 'Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession', and the dazzling rock-doc 'Metallica: Some Kind of Monster'. Jehane Noujaim's 'Control Room' meanwhile, was disqualified due to the fact that it has already been screened on network television.

The 12 films will now be reduced to five final nominees, in preparation for the February 27 ceremony.