Singaporean director’s Netflix film Shirkers misses out on Oscar nomination
Shirkers by Singaporean director Sandi Tan is streamed on Netflix and has limited theatrical release in the United States.
SINGAPORE — Singaporean Sandi Tan’s film Shirkers did not make it into the Best Documentary Feature nominees list for the Oscars this year.
The 46-year-old’s film was one of 15 documentary features shortlisted last month for the 91st Academy Awards' category, along with box-office favourite Free Solo, which documented daredevil Alex Honnold's rope-free rock-climbing feat in Yosemite National Park, United States.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the complete list of nominees on Jan 22 (Tuesday), and the Oscars award ceremony will be held on Feb 24 (Feb 25, 9am, Singapore time) at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.
Ms Tan’s documentary, which is streamed on Netflix and has limited theatrical release in the US, traces how a film of the same name she made in 1992 disappeared along with a film teacher and how it later resurfaced, bringing up uncomfortable questions about her collaborators, herself and her work.
When reached after the nomination list was announced, Ms Tan told TODAY: "It’s an unpredictable race because the documentary branch (the only part that gets to vote on this right now) is unpredictable. I’m with my favourite filmmakers Tim Wardle and Morgan Neville of my cohort who didn’t make it through so I feel I’m in great company!"
Directors Tim Wardle and Morgan Neville both had documentaries that were shortlisted by the Academy, alongside Shirkers, but failed to make the final nomination list too.
Mr Wardle's film, Three Identical Strangers, is about identical triplets who were separated at birth but reunited later in life. Mr Neville's documentary, Won't You Be My Neighbor, examines the work and life of Fred Rodgers, the host of a popular children's television show.
In an interview last month, Ms Tan told TODAY: “Everyone has said that this is an exceptionally strong year in documentary film and I have seen this myself, since I’ve been on the circuit with many of these colleagues in Sundance this year. So I feel particularly thrilled to be part of this shortlist cohort (which includes many talented friends) and I’m proud to be part of this wonderful batch.”
Earlier last year, she won Best Director for Shirkers in the World Cinema Documentary category at the Sundance Film Festival.
The nominees for the Best Documentary Feature category are:
Free Solo (directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin)
Hale County This Morning, This Evening (RaMell Ross)
Minding the Gap (Bing Liu)
Of Fathers and Sons (Talal Derki)
RBG (Betsy West and Julie Cohen)
For full-length feature films, leading the pack with 10 nominations each are Roma, a semi-autobiographical film directed by Alfonso Cuaron about the maid of a middle-class Mexican family in the 1970s, and The Favourite, a black period comedy set during the reign of Queen Anne in 18th-century England and directed by Yorgos Lanthimos.
Roma is the first film released on online entertainment streaming site Netflix to be nominated for Best Picture.
Marvel Studios’ superhero movie Black Panther also made history by becoming the first comic-book movie to earn a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars.
