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Best Documentary Short. The group is solid, taking us from Vietnam to Pakistan to France to Liberia, as well as America.

You can discard, I think, Claude Lanzman: Spectres of the Shoah, a movie about the making of the Holocaust epic, Shoah. The movie is an interesting analysis of the Shoah director, the challenges he faced in making the film, and the lessons he learned in the process. It would be tempting to say “oh, Holocaust movie, therefore it will win,” but the piece is more about the director himself. The movie he made, in turn, ended up being ten hours long. For that reason, it feels as if the short could have been a feature length documentary. There was enough interesting material that it felt weak in this format.

I’m also not sure about Last Day of Freedom, a hand-drawn documentary that focuses on a man who is guilt-ridden after having turned in his brother for committing murder, and the brother was ultimately executed in California. Of the five, this one brought the tears to most people’s eyes in the room. It is a moving film that raises questions about the death penalty, veterans’ health, racial justice, etc. But I’ve never seen a movie that focuses on a one person interview win here, let alone one that focuses on his voice, with only animated images of him to guide us along. It’s artsy, so I’ll give it that, but, again, artsy is not as rewarded in this more “serious category.”

It gets tricky from here on out. I’d probably discard Chau: Beyond The Lines next. This movie follows a Vietnamese teenager born with severe physical impairments due to in utero exposure to Agent Orange. The movie has disturbing images of other children being cared for in a special hospital, and follows Chau’s moving journey from despair to hope as he becomes an artist, despite his disabilities. It is tempting to compare this to past winner, Inocente, which featured a homeless young woman and her journey to fame through art, but the movie does not have the emotional punch that the little girl’s smile packed. Still, given that win in the past, a win by this movie is not out of the question.

I was personally more moved by Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness, the story of a woman who survives an attempt on her life by her own father after she marries without his permission, a so-called “honor killing” in Pakistan. She lives, with severe deformities to her face, and is forced by the elders in her community to “forgive” her assailants, which will allow them to walk free, so that there is peace in the community. The criticism of religious extremism, oppression of women, and arcane values makes it one of the most relevant of the films. It would probably get my vote, and it has that Saving Face aspect of creating sympathy for a woman with a disfigured face. (Note: after writing that last sentence I went online and, lo and behold, the Oscar winning documentarian behind Saving Face is indeed the maker of Girl in the River. Will the branch give her another Oscar? The entire Academy votes on these, but my understanding is that most don’t vote unless they see all the movies, under the honor system, so I expect most votes to come from within the branch.)

More pundits are picking Body Team 12 for the win, the documentary which focuses on a woman that works as a body remover for the Red Cross at the height of the Ebola crisis in Liberia. The obvious reason why this movie could win is because it has the one with the clear hero you want to root for—she is brave and risking her life, in the face of community ostracizing and resistance—to serve others. Past wins from the aforementioned Saving Face to the Crisis Hotline winner last year point in this direction. The only problem is that the movie is very short—only 13 minutes long, shorter than all live action movies—which may cost it some votes.

I’ll predict Body Team 12 with a potential spoiler by Girl in the River.

Next, we will look at the other feature length films—Animated, Documentary, and Foreign Language. All three have clear frontrunners. After that, the home stretch.

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