EXCLUSIVE: The Motion Picture Academy has rejected a plea from producers Matt Damon , Ben Affleck and fellow makers of Kiss the Future to reconsider its decision ruling the documentary ineligible for Oscar consideration. The award-winning film — exploring the 1990s siege of Sarajevo and how the city’s residents took inspiration from U2 ’s music amid a campaign of extermination — played in more than 130 AMC cinemas nationwide, far surpassing the theatrical distribution of most documentaries (in fact, it had one of the widest releases of any documentary since the pandemic). But, in what filmmakers see as a technicality, the Academy judged the film screened two times a day in a qualifying market, and not the prescribed three times as stipulated by Oscar rules.
Deadline has reviewed an August 20 letter from producers Damon, Affleck, and Sarah Anthony addressed to the “Awards Committee and the Documentary Branch Executive Committee” asking for a reevaluation of the Academy’s initial eligibility ruling. The producers wrote in part, “The film first premiered in competition at Berlinale in February 2023. It was then selected as the opening film for the Tribeca Film Festival in June 2023, and for the Sarajevo Film Festival in August 2023, where it received the Audience Award.
It has screened at numerous other festivals, and in February of 2024 was released theatrically by AMC for a two-week run in 139 theaters across all major markets in the U.S. In some theaters, the .