Peter Debruge Chief Film CriticPeople make documentaries about all kinds of things: some slight and silly, others educational or emotional.
But if you want to be nominated for an Oscar in the doc short category, it’s best to zero in on an issue the Academy can get behind, like homelessness, bullying and confronting prejudice.
Just imagine if any other category were the same way — say, if the award for best sound mixing recognized only engineers who’d worked on movies that make the world a better place — but so it goes.
At least all five of this nominees are solid (sometimes quite sophisticated) treatments of their subjects. As Roger Ebert used to say, “It’s not what a movie is about, it’s how it is about it.” “Audible” is art, even if the project originated as a TV commercial.
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