Those who brave to guess a winner in this category without actually having seen any of the nominees usually opt for the one that sounds the most sentimental. This is smart thinking even if you’ve seen the films, but last year the Academy passed over two very good documentaries about the legacies of the Hiroshima bombing and the nightmare of the Rwanda genocide in favor of a banal veneration of Norman Corwin’s career in radio, so who knows what the voters in this category really think. Since we seem to do better at picking a winner when we actually haven’t seen the nominated films, let us take another shot in the dark and predict Recycled Life for the win this year. Based on potential mawkishness alone, The Blood of the Yingzhou District sounds like a winner, but from the trailers I’ve seen and the articles I’ve read, Ruby Yang and Thomas Lennon’s AIDS-afflicted orphans may not be as wrenching to voters as the dead babies that director Leslie Iwerks stumbled across while documenting the lives of people who live and eat out of Central America’s largest garbage dump.
Will Win: Recycled Life
Could Win: The Blood of the Yingzhou District
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