Much like the live action and animated short fields, in order for voters to cast their ballots for the documentary short category, they have to attend screenings of all the nominees. This tends to make these categories a bit tougher to predict, because they are frequently immune to noise in the media. You screen, you vote.
However, if you’re aware of what the committee likes, you can eventually find the pulse. In all these fields, these committees tend to appreciate doing a lot within the time frame constrictions of a short film, which is why animated shorts that resonate, live action shorts with high production value and documentary shorts that succinctly tackle a subject always come out on top.
The nominees are:
“China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province” (Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neil)
“The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardener” (Daniel Junge and Henry Ansbacher)
“The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant” (Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert)
“Music by Prudence” (Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett)
“Rabbit à la Berlin” (Bartek Konopka and Anna Wydra)