15 Feature-Length Documentaries were short-listed today. There are, in alphabetical order, Art and Craft, The Case against 8, Citizen Koch, Citizenfour, Finding Vivian Maier, The Internet’s Own Boy, Jodorowsky’s Dune, Keep On Keepin’ On, The Kill Team, Last Days in Vietnam, Life Itself, The Overnighters, The Salt of the Earth, Tales of the Grim Sleeper and Virunga.

The final five, I’m guessing, will be Citizenfour, Finding Vivian Maier, Life Itself, Last Days in Vietnam and The Salt of the Earth.

Significant blowoffs include Gabe Polsky‘s Red Army (a shocker), Chiemi Kurosawa‘s Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me, Claude Lanzmann‘s The Last of the Unjust, Iain Forsyth‘s 20,000 Days on Earth, Ryan McGarry‘s Code Black, Mark Levinson‘s Particle Fever, Joe Berlinger‘s Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger, Alex Gibney‘s Finding Fela and Andrew Rossi‘s Ivory Tower.

A Sony Pictures Classics release, Red Army has been on the circuit and in the conversation for seven months now, since its mid May debut at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. It’s a very strong, original and affecting film. It’s different, particular, passionate, personable…the other side of hockey history. My personal condolences to director Gabe Polsky, Sony Picture Classics Michael Barker and Tom Bernard, co-dp Svetlana Cvetko and the whole team.