EXCLUSIVE: The Movement Image Academy has rejected a plea from producers Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and fellow makers of Kiss the Future to rethink its choice ruling the documentary ineligible for Oscar consideration.
The award-winning movie — exploring the Nineteen Nineties siege of Sarajevo and the way the town’s residents took inspiration from U2’s music amid a marketing campaign of extermination — performed in additional than 130 AMC cinemas nationwide, far surpassing the theatrical distribution of most documentaries (the truth is, it had one of many widest releases of any documentary because the pandemic). However, in what filmmakers see as a technicality, the Academy judged the movie screened two instances a day in a qualifying market, and never the prescribed thrice as stipulated by Oscar guidelines.
Deadline has reviewed an August 20 letter from producers Damon, Affleck, and Sarah Anthony addressed to the “Awards Committee and the Documentary Department Government Committee” asking for a reevaluation of the Academy’s preliminary eligibility ruling. The producers wrote partly, “The movie first premiered in competitors at Berlinale in February 2023. It was then chosen because the opening movie for the Tribeca Movie Competition in June 2023, and for the Sarajevo Movie Competition in August 2023, the place it obtained the Viewers Award. It has screened at quite a few different festivals, and in February of 2024 was launched theatrically by AMC for a two-week run in 139 theaters throughout all main markets within the U.S. In some theaters, the movie screened thrice day by day, however… the programmers [AMC] uncared for to do a three-times day by day screening inside New York or Los Angeles.”
Deadline has reached out to AMC for remark; if we hear again we are going to replace the story.
RELATED: Oscars 2025 Date & Timeline Set; Academy Sticks With Earlier Begin Time
The Academy wrote again to Anthony, “The Documentary Department Government Committee has reviewed the attraction for KISS THE FUTURE. We remorse to tell you that the attraction has been denied, and the movie was deemed ineligible. Whereas we all know this information is disappointing, we guarantee you that the state of affairs was completely mentioned and evaluated. These troublesome selections aren’t taken evenly by the Committee, however the course of is important to be honest and in keeping with all entries.
“All determinations from the Government Committee are remaining.”
‘Kiss the Future’
Fifth Season
Anthony advised Deadline, “This was a ardour undertaking for everybody concerned they usually tried to stay as much as the spirit of the Academy with a large theatrical launch. A movie solely has to display screen theatrically 21 instances to qualify, and ours screened a whole bunch of instances. One theater that performed the requisite variety of screenings was lower than 30 miles outdoors the qualifying space. It’s stunning to be rejected for a programming error, and I’d hate to see this occur to every other filmmakers.”
(L-R) ‘Kiss the Future’ govt producer Drew Vinton, producer Matt Damon, director Nenad Cicin-Sain, producer Sarah Anthony, govt producer Jennifer Pitcher, and screenwriter Invoice S. Carter in Berlin
Stefanie Loos/AFP by way of Getty Photos
In an interview with Deadline, Kiss the Future director Nenad Cicin-Sain, mentioned, “To be disqualified at this stage… is simply devastating.”
The filmmaker mentioned that, paradoxically, Kiss the Future had lined up a really restricted launch in December 2023 at IFC in New York that will have certified the documentary for Oscar consideration a yr in the past. However at that time AMC stepped up with a proposal for a dramatically bigger launch.
“We determined a large launch was finest for the movie — this the truth is is what the Academy desires to advertise,” Cicin-Sain mentioned. “We knowledgeable the Academy we needed to withdraw from the 2024 awards to be able to do a large theatrical and would resubmit for 2025. They wrote it was okay for us to do that.”
Below “Rule Twelve. Particular Guidelines for the Documentary Function Movie Award,” Academy tips say, “The image will need to have been publicly exhibited for paid admission in a business movement image theater in one of many six qualifying U.S. metro areas: Los Angeles County; Metropolis of New York [five boroughs]; the Bay Space [counties of San Francisco, Marin, Alameda, San Mateo and Contra Costa]; Chicago [Cook County, Illinois]; Dallas-Fort Value [Dallas County, Tarrant County, Texas]; and Atlanta [Fulton County, Georgia], for a run of no less than seven consecutive days. Screenings throughout the theatrical launch should happen no less than thrice day by day, with no less than one screening starting between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. day by day.”
Whereas expressing “nice respect” for the Academy, Cicin-Sain mentioned an rigid studying of the principles on this case ignores the larger image.
“What they’re doing is that they’re implementing the letter of the rule and never the spirit of the rule,” he mentioned. “And if the spirit of the rule is to place films in theaters — and that’s what we did by exhibiting it in as many theaters attainable, and pulling out of the awards when it was only one theater [in favor of] placing it in in 139 theaters — and then you’re not qualifying, one thing’s mistaken.”
Of their August letter to the Academy, Damon, Affleck and Anthony wrote, “AMC can be prepared to do one other qualifying run in September 2024.” Nonetheless, in response to Cicin-Sain, the documentary department govt committee dismissed that supply as a result of Kiss the Future premiered on Paramount+ in Might of this yr, which means beneath Academy tips it’s thought of to have debuted on streaming earlier than its qualifying theatrical launch.
(L-R) U2’s Adam Clayton, Bono, and producer Matt Damon on the world premiere of ‘Kiss the Future’ in Berlin
JOHN MACDOUGALL/AFP by way of Getty Photos
Kiss the Future, which accommodates interviews with Bono and fellow U2 band members, in addition to Bosnians who endured the siege of Sarajevo, has a 100% approval score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 98% favorable rating from viewers.
Deadline understands from the Academy that it doesn’t have an “official appeals course of” for eligibility questions corresponding to that confronted by Kiss the Future, but it surely nonetheless entertained the filmmakers’ request for an exception.
Following the Academy’s remaining rejection discover, Artists Fairness, the manufacturing firm co-founded by Damon and Affleck, with Drew Vinton within the function of EVP, Inventive, offered a press release to Deadline saying, “After all, we love the film and would like it to be into consideration.”
Final Wednesday, Natalie Wade, the Academy’s Senior Director, Member Relations and Awards Administration, wrote to Cicin-Sain, “We fully perceive your frustration and that this was an trustworthy mistake,” apparently referring to AMC’s programming of Kiss the Future twice a day as an alternative of thrice a day in a qualifying market. Wade added, “The movie was not ‘beneath attraction’ – it’s not eligible as a result of it didn’t meet the showtime necessities as outlined within the guidelines.”
The next day, September 19, Cicin-Sain wrote to Wade and Academy president Janet Yang, repeating a request to current an attraction. He wrote of Kiss the Future, “On the finish of the day this movie is an antidote to the division we face and promotes pluralism and unity with a message of affection and hope. It’s additionally a really entertaining and transferring film that the academy ought to assist not disqualify due to a mistake made not by the producers or filmmakers however a distributor.”
That echoes the plea from Damon, Affleck, and Anthony to the Academy of their August 20 letter. They wrote, “With the conflict in Ukraine already having lasted two years, and with every thing that’s taking place in Gaza this movie couldn’t be extra well timed as a cautionary story in opposition to the rise of nationalism, an attraction for peace, and a celebration of one of the best of the human spirit when confronted with adversity. We hope you’ll enable us the chance to aim to attract extra consideration to the subject material.”
