Oscar voters scanning their final ballot may do a double-take when they get to Best Documentary Feature: the name Shane Boris really does appear twice in the same category.
Boris is nominated as a producer for both National Geographic’s Fire of Love and CNN Films’ Navalny, a rare achievement in documentary that pairs him with the likes of Walt Disney, who was nominated in 1942 for two nonfiction shorts. “As far as having two [nominations]… gosh, I feel lucky and grateful,” Boris tells Deadline. “More than anything, I feel this gratitude and camaraderie for everyone who made it possible… for everyone else that works in the teams with me.” That modesty is one of the qualities that makes Boris among the most successful producers in nonfiction cinema.
Often, a producer must embrace a certain degree of self-effacement for a project to reach its potential. “I think the work of a producer is so much about trying to intuit and understand what the director’s vision is and how to make that happen and how to actualize it,” he explains. “And you have this process of sort of selflessness as an actor in that encounter.” For Fire of Love, Boris collaborated with director Sara Dosa and fellow nominated producer Ina Fichman, among others, on the story of scientists Maurice and Katia Krafft, a married couple whose passionate study of volcanoes ultimately led to their deaths in an eruption in 1991.
On Navalny, meanwhile, Boris worked in concert with director Daniel Roher and fellow nominated producers Odessa Rae, Diane Becker, and Melanie Miller.
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