Morgan Neville’s documentary about Mister Rogers, called “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” won the Critics Choice Documentary Award tonight at the 3rd annual affair held in Brooklyn at BAM offshoot BRIC.
“Neighbor” is turning into the crowd favorite for the Academy Award. It would be Neville’s second Oscar, after “20 Feet from Stardom.” Other winners included Quincy Jones, Judd Apatow for his Garry Shandling doc, plus Nat Geo films “Free Solo” and “Science Fair.”
What’s changing is that award winning docs are now popular films about cultural subjects. This has shifted from hard hitting news, social commentary, and so on. I can’t say it’s bad, but it’s a change that needs to change back in the next couple of years.
Here are the winners:
Best Documentary: Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
Best Limited Documentary Series: The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling
Best Ongoing Documentary Series: Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown
Best Director: Morgan Neville for Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
Best First Time Director: TIE: Bing Liu for Minding the Gap, and Cristina Costantini and Darren Foster for Science Fair
Best Political Documentary: RBG
Best Sports Documentary: Free Solo
Best Music Documentary: Quincy
Most Innovative Documentary: Free Solo
Best Cinematography: Free Solo
Best Editing: Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
