The PR angle focuses on the prestige of the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival's inaugural Oscar roundtable, highlighting the critical acclaim and festival circuit success of the four featured documentaries as a testament to their quality.
The real tea is the sheer exhaustion and danger lurking beneath the glamour. While audiences see polished trailers, the filmmakers are dealing with being labeled 'enemies of the state' in Montenegro, navigating the trauma of lost fathers, and managing protagonists who literally vanish on them during production.
1. 'Once Upon a Time in Harlem' is the only documentary this year to screen at Sundance, Cannes, Telluride, TIFF, and NYFF. 2. 'To Hold a Mountain' won the Sundance Grand Jury Award. 3. 'Closure' director Michał Marczak won the Golden Alexander at Thessaloniki.
Awards season buzz often glosses over the personal toll of documentary filmmaking. This roundtable proves that the road to an Oscar is paved with political exile, unresolved grief, and logistical nightmares.
The road to the Oscars is rarely a straight line, and for the filmmakers behind four of this year’s most critically acclaimed documentaries, it has been a winding path of political peril, personal trauma, and logistical chaos. Last week, the Arlington Hotel in Hot Springs, Arkansas, hosted the inaugural Oscar Contenders Roundtable at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival (HSDFF), a partnership with Deadline that brought together the creative forces behind "American Doctor," "To Hold a Mountain," "Closure," and "Once Upon a Time in Harlem." As critics’ shortlists begin to drop and the awards race tightens, this live edition of the Doc Talk podcast, hosted by Oscar-winner John Ridley and Deadline’s senior documentary editor Matt Carey, offered a rare, unfiltered look at the careers of these directors.
Biljana Tutorov, co-director of the Sundance Grand Jury Award winner "To Hold a Mountain," delivered the most chilling anecdote of the night. Filmed in Montenegro, the documentary followed protagonist Gara Jovanović in a way that ultimately turned the creative team into political targets. Tutorov revealed that she, her co-director Petar Glomazić, and Jovanović became "enemies of the state" during production.
It is a stark reminder that for many international documentarians, the pursuit of truth can result in immediate personal jeopardy, a cost that rarely makes it into the final cut or the awards speeches. While political exile is one burden, personal grief is another. Michał Marczak, director of "Closure," which secured the Golden Alexander at the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival, discussed how the act of filmmaking became a therapeutic, albeit painful, process.
Marczak admitted that making the film unexpectedly helped him confront postponed grief stemming from the loss of his father when he was just 11 years old. He also candidly noted the downsides of the awards circuit, specifically the demand to promote the film through social media—a task that feels incongruent with the heavy emotional weight of his work. The panel also shed light on the complex dynamics of production.
Poh Si Teng, director of "American Doctor," explained the professional nightmare of having one of her key protagonists "ghost" her at a critical stage of production. Beyond her own hurdles, Teng’s perspective was broadened by the global context, as she spoke poignantly about her filmmaking colleagues in Gaza who remain trapped in the occupied territory, unable to leave even as the humanitarian crisis continues. Meanwhile, Liani Greaves, producer of "Once Upon a Time in Harlem," detailed the unique father-daughter collaboration with her dad, David Greaves. The film, crafted from material shot by her grandfather William Greaves in 1972, stands alone this year as the only documentary to screen at the five major festivals: Sundance, Cannes, Telluride, TIFF, and the New York Film Festival.
