The Porcelain War, a film about the war in Ukraine, will try to win the Oscar in 2025. Who are its competitors

23 January 19:35

The nominees for the 97th Academy Awards have been announced. Among them is the Ukrainian film The Porcelain War, which will compete for the title of Best Feature Documentary. The full list of nominees was announced today by the American Film Academy, Komersant ukrainskyi reports.

The Ukrainian film nominee will compete with four other contenders. These are the documentaries No Other Land, Black Box Diaries, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, and Sugar Cane. And the competition promises to be intense.

Porcelain War

This is an American-Ukrainian-Australian documentary film, a collaboration between American Brendan Bellomo and Kharkiv’s Slava Leontiev, about Ukrainian ceramic artists Slava, Anya and Andriy, who decide to stay and fight when the war starts.

“A touching work about the fragility of art and the preservation of humanity under any circumstances, even in a brutal war,” is how the film is described on the Planeta Kino website.

“The Porcelain War is a real cinematic gem,” is how film critics evaluate the film. – Slava Leontyev and co-director Brendan Bellomo have managed to gracefully capture the dissonance between the horrors of war and the fragile beauty of nature and artistic practices. Ania and Slava’s porcelain pieces come to life in a graceful animation that introduces the viewer to the story of their creators and the difficulties they overcome.”

The film won two awards at the Boulder International Film Festival – the Grand Prix for Best Documentary Feature and the Audience Award in the Documentary Feature category.

“No Other Land

The film was made by a Palestinian-Israeli group of four activists (Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Rachel Sor) as an act of resistance on the way to justice during the ongoing conflict in the region. The film follows an attack by Israeli soldiers on the village of Masafer Yatti in the occupied West Bank and the alliance that develops between Palestinian activist Basel and Israeli journalist Yuval. The film won the American independent film award Gotham Awards 2024.

“Black Box Diaries

The film, directed by Ito Shiori, tells the story of Japanese journalist Shiori Ito, who investigates the sexual abuse of herself in an attempt to bring a known criminal to justice. Her search becomes a landmark case that exposes Japan’s outdated judicial and social systems.

Soundtrack To A Coup D’Etat

This is a 2024 documentary directed by Johan Grimonprez about the Cold War episode in which American musicians Abby Lincoln and Max Roach crashed the UN Security Council to protest the assassination of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba.

Sugarcane

The National Geographic documentary explores the systematic abuse of indigenous children who attended a so-called “Indian boarding school” in British Columbia. An investigation into the children’s disappearance leads to a reckoning on a sugar cane reserve. Directed by Emily Cassie, Julia Brave Neuset.

Who else is up for an Oscar this year

The satirical musical Emilia Perez by Jacques Audiard received the largest number of nominations – including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress for Carla Sofia Gascon – with 13. Oppenheimer had the same number of nominations last year.

The Brutalist directed by Brady Corbet and Wicked: The Conjuring by John Chu are in second place with 10 nominations each. The Bob Dylan biopic Bob Dylan: A Complete Stranger” has 8 nominations, and John Baker’s comedy drama Anora has 6 nominations.

The films will compete for the Oscar in four “main” categories:

Best Picture – Anora, The Brutalist, Total Recall, The Conclave, Dune: Part Two, Emilia Perez, Wicked: The Conjuring, Substance, Nickel Boys, I’m Still Here.

Best Actor – Adrian Brody for The Brutalist, Timothy Chalamet for Total Recall, Ralph Fiennes for The Conclave, Colman Domingo for Sing Sing, Sebastian Stan for The Apprentice. The Trump Story”.

Best Actress: Carla Sofia Gascon for Emilia Perez, Mikey Madison for Anora, Demi Moore for Substance, Fernanda Torres for I’m Still Here, Cynthia Erivo for Wicked: The Conjuring.

Best Director – Sean Baker for Anora, Brady Corbet for The Brutalist, James Mangold for Total Recall, Jacques Audiard for Emilia Perez, Coralie Farja for Substance.

As you know, two documentaries about the war in Ukraine were shortlisted for the 97th Academy Awards. In addition to The Porcelain War directed by Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontiev, there is also a short film Once Upon a Time in Ukraine directed by Betsy West, which was shortlisted in the Best Documentary Short Film category. The film was co-produced by Ukraine and the United States. It tells the story of children’s lives during the war.

We would also like to remind you that the long official list of contenders for the Oscars 2025 included three representatives from Ukraine: the films La Palisade (directed by Philip Sotnychenko) and The Porcelain War (directed by Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontiev), as well as the documentary Peaceful People (directed by Oksana Karpovych).

Василевич Сергій
Editor