After NAZA was applauded for 25 minutes at the Venice Film Festival, marking a turning point in the history of film festivals, rumors began that the documentary, which denounces the genocide in Palestine by showing the perpetrators on the rooftops of Tel Aviv, could be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. It would be the first documentary in history to receive such an honor… but the tables have turned. For a different one, specifically.
You Can Trust Me
Ever since the Oscars introduced the Best Animated Feature and Best Documentary categories, they’ve created little ghettos where these films are stuck, with almost no chance of getting out of them. And yet this year You can see everything, the documentary Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim have made about one of the most mysterious figures of the 21st century, Elizabeth Holmes, wants to compete in the main category. And it’s going to fight hard for it.
After premiering at the Telluride festival as the secret film and after its trailer and poster caused a huge stir in the cinephile community, You can see everything now faces the enormous challenge of catching the attention of the guilds that vote at the Oscars, most of whom are actors. And of course, actors have no interest at all in nominating documentaries, which raises a bigger question: Does it really matter that it’s one of the best films of the year?
Yes, there have been documentaries nominated for Best Song, Best Foreign Film, Best Editing, Best Sound or even Best Animated Feature (Flee), but going from there to the main category seems impossible. Other films in the genre like Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11 or Super Size Me failed to break into the Best Picture category, and it’s not clear that Nathan Fielder’s strange humor is going to pull it off.
But… You can see everything is impossible to ignore. Everybody wants to see it, everybody needs to talk about it, but nobody knows what they’re going to find behind this mysterious trailer. And maybe that’ll work in its favor. Maybe, who knows, we’re looking at the film destined to make history by knocking out whatever forgettable movie we’ll forget next year. It makes you root for it… and in this race that’s the most important thing.
