Hollywood Elsewhere is attending a reception this evening for Richard Ladkani and Kief Davidson‘s The Ivory Game, a respected Netflix doc about the ongoing assault on African elephants and their possible extinction. It’s on the Academy’s doc shortlist and is naturally hoping to become one of the five nominees.

A persistent view remains that Ezra Edelman‘s O.J.: Made in America will snag the Oscar, but getting nominated adds cred and is no small accomplishment.

I was reminded last week that The Ivory Game is even more timely now that China has put an official timeline on ending sale of ivory. For decades China has been the biggest market for ivory, which is principally harvested with the killing of elephants and chopping off their tusks, but last week it announced a plan to phase out all ivory processing and trade by the end of 2017.

“China’s announcement is a game changer for elephant conservation. The large-scale trade of ivory now faces its twilight years, and the future is brighter for wild elephants. With the US also ending its domestic ivory trade earlier this year, two of the largest ivory markets have taken action that will reverberate around the world.” — Carter Roberts, president/CEO of World Wildlife Fund.

In a 12.6 Indiewire piece that assessed the 2017 Documentary Shortlist situation, Anne Thompson speculated that The Ivory Game is not among the five docs that are most likely to be nominated. HE respectfully disagrees. In my opinion the five most likely and most deserving docs, in this order: O.J.: Made in America, Weiner, Cameraperson, The Ivory Game, Fire At Sea.