Critics Choice and DOC NYC Reveal Where the Documentary Race Is So Far

This week’s episode of IndieWire’s “Screen Talk” podcast covers a range of disparate topics that rarely stack up in the same sentence: the documentary Oscar race and the pervasiveness of horror movies at the box office.

As “Joker: Folie à Deux” continues its downward slope after a disastrous second weekend — one of the worst drops ever for a sequel — Damien Leone’s low-budget Cineverse-distributed slasher is the jewel of Halloween season. The horror genre remains a reliable stalwart of the box office at any time of year, but especially during spooky season. Also opening this weekend is Parker Finn’s impressively directed “Smile 2,” a studio sequel (Paramount) that is way more sophisticated than it had to be. It stars Naomi Scott as a pop star suffering a mental breakdown after she’s possessed by a suicide-compelling demon — think “Black Swan” plus, well, the last “Smile” movie, but with more directorial chops this time. Next up, Parker Finn will direct a remake of Andrzej ?u?awski’s Isabelle Adjani freakout “Possession.” Ryan previously did not endorse that concept, but after seeing “Smile 2” is now walking that back.

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This week, “Screen Talk” co-hosts Anne and Ryan also discuss the various doc lists that dropped this week, from DOC NYC‘s influential (and intentionally predictive) shortlist of 15 to the more mainstream Critics Choice lineup that sums up where the documentary Oscar race is so far. The common denominator is Emily Kassie and Julian Brave NoiseCat’s “Sugarcane” (NatGeo), which reveals the longstanding abuse at an Indian boarding school in Canada. Also hugely worthy of being on DOC NYC’s list is “No Other Land,” from directors Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Hamdan Ballal, and Rachel Szor. The documentary shows how Israel destroyed settlements in West Bank’s Masafer Yatta to use as military training grounds, and was five years in the making. It’s self-distributed and opening at Film at Lincoln Center at the top of November.

Watch the full episode above or listen to it below.

Screen Talk is produced by Azwan Badruzaman and available on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and Spotify, and hosted by Megaphone. Browse previous episodes here, subscribe here, and be sure to let us know if you’d like to hear the hosts address specific issues in upcoming editions of Screen Talk.

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