Paramount Plus, Showtime and More New Doc Distributors Offer Worthy Oscar Competition

variety.com:

Addie Morfoot ContributorThis year’s documentary Academy Award feature race is historical on many fronts. Four of the five nominated films were directed by people of color; Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s “Flee” made history by scoring three Oscar nominations: not only the doc feature category but also in the animated feature and international feature categories; Sushmit Ghosh and Rintu Thomas’ “Writing With Fire” became the first feature doc from India to earn a nom in the race; and four of the six nominated helmers are first-time feature docu directors.But perhaps the most intriguing aspect of this year’s nonfiction feature Oscar race is the dominance of nascent doc distributors and production units.

Paramount Plus, Showtime Documentary Films and Music Box Films each received their inaugural Oscar nomination in the documentary feature category Feb.

8 for: Jessica Kingdon’s “Ascension” (MTV Documentary Films/Paramount Plus), Stanley Nelson’s “Attica” (Showtime Documentary Films) and Ghosh and Thomas’ “Writing with Fire” (Music Box Films).

Meanwhile Neon and Hulu garnered their second noms in the category for Rasmussen’s “Flee” and Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s “Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)” respectively.It’s a remarkable feat given Netflix’s five-year stronghold on the feature docu category.