Today is the day that Oscar voting begins in the Documentary Feature category where North Circular is competing to select a shortlist of 15 from the field of eligible films.
We are asking for members of the Documentary Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to consider voting for #NorthCircular,
We are a massive underdog because we don't have a major studio or streamer partner to finance a full Oscar campaign but we did get out to Los Angeles and New York to screen the film for Academy voters last week in a whistle stop tour. North Circular also returns to Light House Cinema this Sunday at 6pm.
The past few weeks have been a fascinating education in how the world of major awards campaigning works - TLDR: bring a massive war chest to the table and be working on your campaign from a year out.
Put it this way: the entire production budget of North Circular is probably less than the canapés budget on a major awards campaign.
But it is great to even be in the running among some of these films.
And its also heartening to see such strong Irish representation in the category this year - Laura McGann's doc The Deepest Breath, co-produced by Jamie D'Alton and Anne McLoughlin along with John Battsek is one of the front runners, In The Shadow of Beirut directed by STEPHEN GERARD KELLY and Garry Keane and produced by Brendan J Byrne is competing in two slots - Best Doc and Best Intl. Feature, and Joan Baez: I Am A Noise, though a US production, is directed by Dubliner Maeve O'Boyle.
Another plus from the campaign trail is getting to meet some real promising up-and-comers in the field, like Wim Wenders who has his film Anselm in the competition...I'm sure he will go far.
#documentary #academy #Oscars
