Non-fiction films take center stage at the Cinema Eye Honors, awards for the art of documentary filmmaking. At the Museum of the Moving Image this week, pioneers and newcomers to the field, gathered to recognize achievement in editing, directing, graphic design or animation, cinematography and other aspects of story-telling craft. Oscar voters have their own list; the Cinema Eye nominees, and winners, coming from theatrical, television, and streaming venues, may not be your most familiar movies, such as this year’s Free Solo, Three Identical Strangers, and Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, but they are the ones most admired by industry insiders. Academy Award winner Morgan Neville said he was attending: because his documentary about Mister Rogers was nominated, and because he loves the documentary community.

Presenters at this year’s ceremony, its 12^th–hosted by Steve James and attended by D. A. Pennebaker and Barbara Kopple— included Liz Garbus, Chris Hegedus, Matthew Heineman, Ezra Edelman, Yance Ford, Dan Cogan, Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, and many others. The top prizes went to Hale County This Morning, This Evening, Free Solo, Shirkers, and Minding the Gap, this last also was named Best Documentary at the New York Film Critics Circle this week. All of these films are on the Oscar short list; it will be interesting to see if these become this year’s nominees.

An aside about the talented Matthew Heineman; in addition to his documentary series The Trade, on Showtime, he directed one of my favorite films of the year, A Private War, based on a Vanity Fair article by journalist Marie Brenner about the life and death of war correspondent Marie Colvin, starring Rosamund Pike. Utilizing the techniques of his work in non-fiction, Heineman tells a true-life story, crossing over into fiction, and like the best documentaries, the results are thrilling.

Regina Weinreich

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