'Billie Eilish: The World's A Little Blurry' Nominated for 'Best Music Documentary' at the Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards
By Pete Hammond
Deadline
October 18, 2021
Notably leading the pack of nominees revealed Monday for the sixth annual Critics Choice Documentary Awards are a pair of films from directors making their debut as documentarians. Ascension’s Jessica Kingdon and Summer of Soul (…Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised)’s Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson pulled off the impressive feat, with both films receiving six nods apiece. On their tails however are a pair of docus from Nat Geo with five nods each: The Rescue. whose directors Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi took the Oscar for their previous effort Free Solo; and Becoming Cousteau, whose director Liz Garbus is also a docu veteran with two Oscar nominations and two Emmys to her credit.
All will compete in the Best Documentary Feature and Best Director categories, with Thompson and Kingdon also facing off for Best First Documentary Feature along with such indie film giants as Todd Haynes and Edgar Wright. The latter pair are making their debuts in the docu film world with The Velvet Underground and The Sparks Brothers, respectively.
Among other Best Docu nominees are Attica, The Crime of the Century, A Crime on the Bayou, Flee, Introducing Selma Blair, The Lost Leonardo, My Name Is Pauli Murray and Procession.
“This has been and continues to be a fantastic year for documentary storytelling. And the number of first-time feature documentarians in the mix of nominees, alongside proven veterans, shows that nonfiction cinema continues to have a very bright future,” said Christopher Campbell, president of the Critics Choice Documentary branch. “Our world, from its most amazing wonders to its greatest challenges, is being reflected back on the screen so immediately and creatively by today’s filmmakers, and it’s a tremendous honor for us to recognize all of their achievements.”
Winners will be revealed at a gala event Sunday November 14 at BRIC in Brooklyn, NY. National Geographic Documentary Films is the Presenting Sponsor. Catalyst Sponsors are HBO Max, Hulu, Netflix and Showtime Documentary Films.
In addition to the 14 award categories and one honor listed below, The Pennebaker Award for lifetime achievement will be presented this year to R.J. Cutler. The award is named for Critics Choice Lifetime Achievement Award winner D.A. Pennebaker, who died in 2019, and will be presented to Cutler by Pennebaker’s producing partner and wife Chris Hedgus. Cutler is the award-winning producer-director whose work includes some of the most acclaimed documentaries of the last 30 years. His most recent film, the Apple Original Film cinema verité documentary Billie Eilish: The World’s A Little Blurry, is nominated for Best Music Documentary
BEST MUSIC DOCUMENTARY NOMINEES
Billie Eilish: The World’s A Little Blurry (Apple TV+)
Bitchin’: The Sound and Fury of Rick James (Showtime)
Listening to Kenny G (HBO Documentary Films)
The Sparks Brothers (Focus Features)
Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) (Searchlight Pictures/Hulu)
Tina (HBO Documentary Films)
The Velvet Underground (Apple TV+)