State of the Race As streamers, broadcasters, and production companies keep adding documentary divisions, the number of worthy documentaries in awards play only increases every year. The Academy documentary branch members — a less predictable global community of filmmakers much expanded from the small cabal of yesteryear — doggedly view dozens of movies to find the shortlist of fifteen, which will then be whittled down to the final five. The frontrunners for nominations have been scoring across the early awards honors: the Critics Choice Documentary Awards, IDA Awards, and Cinema Eye Honors, plus DOC NYC’s influential and predictive Short List....

“Hollywoodland” will open in late Spring 2023, and will trace the history of filmmaking in Los Angeles to the beginning of the 20th century. According to the release, “it will foreground the ways in which the birth of the American film industry — and therefore the projected depiction of the American Dream — is truly an immigrant story.” Also coming are galleries devoted to Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather” and the influences of French auteur Agnès Varda and World War II classic “Casablanca,” as well as an exhibition focused on John Singleton’s groundbreaking “Boyz n the Hood....

However, also from Universal, “She Said,” which has struggled to connect with audiences at the box office and appears to be a straggler in the awards race, got a needed boost in the top 10. Universal also got an expected shout-out for “The Fabelmans” (director Steven Spielberg is on the board of AFI trustees). A24’s “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” Focus Features’ “TÁR” (director Todd Field is an AFI Conservatory alum), and United Artists Releasing’s “Women Talking” also notched spots....

The statistics speak for themselves: According to the CDC, Black and Native women are two to three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women in this country. “Aftershock” is the result of tragedy, and the collaborative efforts of families who have endured the outcomes of systemic racial discrimination in reproductive health. The documentary from directors Paula Eiselt and Tonya Lewis Lee simultaneously gives a wide-angle and close-up look at the dangers of giving birth while Black, from the ways women’s healthcare has been taken out of their hands over time, to how this trend has impacted individual families who undergo the devastating experience of losing their respective partner, child, or mother in the blink of an eye, all due to preventable complications and medical neglect....

Still, in terms of pure red-carpet optics, Cannes locked its ace-in-the-hole two years ago when it planned to screen “Top Gun: Maverick” out of competition at its canceled edition. At long last, Tom Cruise will walk the red carpet of the Lumiere Theatre for the first time since 1992, when he appeared for Ron Howard’s “Far and Away.” The Cannes launch (which follows a world premiere at CinemaCon) means even people for whom the pronunciation of “Cannes” is as mysterious as its program will catch a whiff of the media excitement around May 18....

In an appearance at the Red Sea International Film Festival in Saudi Arabia (via The Hollywood Reporter), Dominik opened up about the backlash that his movie has generated. The director said that American audiences had the strongest negative reactions to the film, something he blamed on his decision to portray an American icon in a way that dramatically differs from current cultural mores. “Now we’re living in a time where it’s important to present women as empowered, and they want to reinvent Marilyn Monroe as an empowered woman....

“I’m sad for [those audiences]. And I’m proud of Marvel for refusing to cut those scenes out,” Jolie told Australia’s News.com about the ban. “I still don’t understand how we live in a world today where there’s still [people who] would not see the family Phastos has and the beauty of that relationship and that love. How anybody is angry about it, threatened by it, doesn’t approve or appreciate it is ignorant....