The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences have just announced the Oscar nominations, and Netflix has grabbed itself one.
Virunga, a film about endangered gorillas at Virunga National Park in the eastern Congo, has been nominated for Best Documentary Feature. It’ll be up against CitizenFour, Finding Vivian Maier, Last Days in Vietnam, and The Salt of the Earth.
Congrats to our nominees for Documentary Feature… #OscarNoms pic.twitter.com/C2jAY2N51W
— The Academy (@TheAcademy) January 15, 2015
“All I can say is that we’re just humbled that people seem to like the film and seem to resonate with the issues at its heart. I think part of that is because there’s a few things at play – protecting this park isn’t just about protecting the last mountain gorilla, it’s also not just about protecting a part of eastern Congo that really is key to driving forward stability in the region, it’s an issue that everyone should care about, because Virunga is a world heritage site. Only a very small percentage of our planet is protected by these areas. These are parts of the world that humanity has come together and said that they’re so special that we can’t be exploring for oil or gas or coal, that we have to protect them. So if somewhere like Virunga, African’s oldest national park, falls in the face of business interests, what is left on out planet that is safe? And I think that resonates with people because they realize that this is really a line in the sand,” said director Orlando von Einsiedel last month when his film was shortlisted for the Oscar nom.
Last year, Netflix’s original documentary The Square was nominated in the same category, but didn’t win. Netflix did score its first-ever Oscar, however, as The Lady in Number 6 won the Best Documentary Short Subject category.
You can check out the full list of Oscar nominations here.
Image via Virunga Movie, Twitter
