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With just over a month before the annual Academy Awards ceremony, viewers can catch up with the
five nominees for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar, currently available to view online via
streaming service Netflix, or from video-on-demand services like Amazon, iTunes and Vudu.
The films are a diverse mix of investigative journalism, an eyewitness to history in the making, art,
and music, which deliver both reveries and gut-punches to the soul.
paramilitary forces recruit civilians to "act" as the terrified victims of beatings and burned villages).
"The Act of Killing" looks into the self-image of Indonesians who killed with impunity, and who today
rule a populace cowered in fear.
The central figure in the film is Anwar Congo, a gangster who killed many. He is also a movie buff,
and had modeled his torture of victims after crime films. He demonstrates on camera how he killed,
and appears in remarkable scenes featuring headless mannequins, gobs of fake blood, crossdressing, fantastical musical numbers, and the ghosts of victims who thank their killers for sending
them to Heaven.
Through his process of "preserving" for future generations the deeds of the killers, Congo also
reveals his nightmares, and his own journey to understand what his victims felt once the wires were
tightened around their necks.
"The Act of Killing" won the 2013 Gotham Award and European Film Award for Best Documentary. It
was named Best Documentary by critics groups in Austin, Boston, Chicago, Kansas City, New York,
San Diego, San Francisco, Toronto and Vancouver, and tied for the National Society of Film Critics'
Best Non-Fiction Film Award.
Watch "The Act of Killing" on Netflix, Amazon, iTunes and Vudu.
Winner of the cinematography award at Sundance, "Dirty Wars" won the Grand Jury Prize at the
Boston Independent Film Festival.
Watch "Dirty Wars" on Netflix and Amazon.
Egyptian protesters, equipped with gas masks and cameras, in a scene from the documentary "The
Square," directed by Jehane Noujaim.
Noujaim Films
"The Square"
Director Jehane Noujaim ("Control Room") tells the story of the revolution in Egypt that deposed a
dictatorial leader -- and, eventually, his democratically-elected successor -- through the struggles of
the activists who occupied Cairo's Tahrir Square and were met with violence, victory, and the
political birth pangs associated with the country's new constitution.
In November 2011 Noujaim was arrested by Egyptian police while documenting clashes in Cairo; her
camera -- in the hands of some, a revolutionary weapon -- was confiscated. But with more and more
smartphones available to just about anyone in Tahrir Square, hiding police abuse became
impossible.
The images -- spreading to the world via YouTube, Facebook and other media -- fueled and
prolonged the protests, which rekindled every few months with each new incident of police abuse or
political gamesmanship. As young idealist Ahmed Hassan observes, "As long as there is a camera,
the revolution will continue."
"The Square" won an Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival last January, but was updated
after the removal from power of President Morsi and the crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood.
Watch "The Square" on Netflix.
Background singers Jo Lawry, Judith Hill and Lisa Fischer perform "Lean on Me," in the
documentary, "20 Feet From Stardom."
Radius
The film also interviews such artists as Bruce Springsteen, Sheryl Crow, Mick Jagger, Bette Midler
and Sting about the singers with whom they've shared a stage.
Watch "20 Feet From Stardom" on Amazon, iTunes and Vudu; also available on DVD/Blu-Ray from
Netflix.
To sample the soundtrack album of "20 Feet From Stardom," click on the streaming audio player
from SoundCloud below. You may also download selections from Amazon.
Short Films
In addition to the documentary features, films nominated for Best Documentary Short Subject are
available to view on satellite and via VOD (Amazon and iTunes), thanks to Shorts HD and Magnolia
Pictures.
The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2014 programs include shorts in the live action, animation and
documentary categories. The programs will also be screened in theatres beginning January 31.
The five nominated shorts are:
"CaveDigger," Jeffrey Karoff's portrait of environmental artist Ra Paulette, who carves caves into the
New Mexico landscape; "Facing Fear," about a gay man and his chance meeting with a neo-Nazi who
savagely beat him years earlier; "Karama Has No Walls," about the Yemeni government's response
to protesters who tried to add their voices to the Arab Spring; "The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved
My Life," featuring 109-year-old pianist and Holocaust survivor Alice Herz Sommer; and "Prison
Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall," in which a terminally-ill convict receives hospice care
from other prison imates.