Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Oscar Nod for Controversial Amy Winehouse Documentary

Nominees for the 88th Academy Awards were announced this morning and the road to the February 28 telecast of the Oscars has officially begun.

While this year’s favorites, “The Revenant” and “The Martian,” lead the pack with 12 and 9 nominations, respectively, but there were several nominations for Jewish films and documentaries.

Already a winner at the Golden Globes, Hungarian Holocaust film “Son of Saul” was nominated for best foreign language film, “Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah” was nominated for best documentary short and the controversial posthumous documentary “Amy” of late Jewish singer Amy Winehouse was nominated for best documentary feature.

Mitch Winehouse, Winehouse’s father, distanced himself from the documentary, that the documentary focused on his daughter’s drug addiction. “There are so many great things in Amy’s life that were missed in that film. It was a great opportunity that [director] Asif Kapadia had and he didn’t grab it,” he said. “Everyone had heard that rubbish. Let’s hear something new about Amy, and this is what this is about – creativity and positivity.”

Matt Charman, Joel and Ethan Coen were also nominated for best original screenplay for “Bridge of Spies.” With the Steven Spielberg production also earning a nod for the coveted best picture prize.

Image by Getty Images

“The Revenent,” which is produced by Israeli billionaire Arnon Milchan, is a fan favorite to win, and if it does, it will be Milchan’s third Best Picture win in a row.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.