Thursday, June 12, 2025

‘Daughters’ and ‘Death Without Mercy’ lead nominees for Outstanding Social Issue Documentary at the News & Doc Emmy Awards


As I promised in 'Mammals' and the remaining nominees for Best Documentary at the News & Doc Emmy Awards, I'm examining the nominees for Outstanding Social Issue Documentary, where Daughters and Death Without Mercy lead with two nominations apiece. The remaining nominees, "Name Me Lawand" on POV, "One With the Whale" on Independent Lens, and "Two American Families: 1991-2024" on FRONTLINE, all on PBS, each have just this one nomination. I'm embedding their trailers in the order above beginning with Daughters | Official Trailer | Netflix.

Four young girls prepare for a special Daddy Daughter Dance with their incarcerated fathers, as part of a unique fatherhood program in a Washington, D.C. jail.
After watching this trailer, I want to wish my readers a happy early Father's Day. The title is Daughters, but it's also about fatherhood.

Shifting gears to its likelihood of winning, Daughters has quite the awards track record heading into the News & Doc Emmy Awards, winning seven awards including Best New Documentary Filmmaker(s) at the Critics' Choice Documentary Awards, Documentary Award for Black Cinema & Television at the Critics Choice Awards Celebration of Cinema and Television, Best Documentary from the African-American Film Critics Association, Best Documentary from the Indiana Film Journalists Association, and three film festival awards including two at Sundance. It also has 45 nominations, including BAFTA, Directors Guild of America, NAACP Image Awards, Black Reel Awards, Cinema for Peace Awards, Cinema Eye Honors Awards, five more from the Critics' Choice Documentary Awards, the Astra Awards, and more critics associations and film festivals than I have the time and energy to list. That's much more than the next nominee, Death Without Mercy | Official Trailer from Red Carpet Trailers.

MTV Documentary Films has announced a May 3 theatrical release for Death Without Mercy (working title), a riveting account of the massive earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria a year ago this week, killing more than 50,000 people.
Like Tsunami: Race Against Time, this is a movie I can recommend to my future geology students. Welcome to blogging as professional development.

IMDB lists only three nominations for Death Without Mercy, including its two nominations at the News & Doc Emmy Awards, which the site doesn't list yet for Daughters. Its director having an Oscar nomination helps it, but I don't know if that's enough to push it ahead of Daughters, which is my pick to win this category. Just the same, its an MTV Documentary Film, and I've learned not to underestimate one of those.

Now for the PBS nominees, starting with Name Me Lawand | Official Trailer | POV | PBS.

Lawand, deaf from birth, seeks a fresh start with his family in the UK after a traumatic year in a refugee camp. At Derby's Royal School for the Deaf, he learns sign language and discovers a way to communicate with the world. As he thrives, his family faces deportation, challenging their stability. Name Me Lawand is a love letter to the power of friendship and community.
That looks touching, inspring, and uplifting. I don't know if it's enough to win.

Next, One With the Whale | Official Trailer | Independent Lens | PBS.

Hunting whales is a matter of life or death for the residents of St. Lawrence. When a shy Alaska Native teen becomes the youngest person ever to harpoon a whale for his village, his family is blindsided by thousands of keyboard activists brutally attacking him online—without full perspective on the importance of the hunt to his community's well-being.
I can recommend this documentary to my current and future environmental science students about the proper place of hunting. Again, welcome to blogging as professional development.

Finally, Two American Families: 1991-2024 (trailer) | FRONTLINE.

Filmed over 34 years, two families struggle to survive in a changing American economy. Through hard times, falling wages, and loss of manufacturing jobs, the continuation of Bill Moyers’ chronicle of perseverance as the American dream slips away.
My students would probably appreciate this documentary as well, although I don't know if I would accept it as extra credit. It does fit the blog's theme of surviving collapse and decline, so it's definitely on-topic here.

Follow over the jump for the second nominations Daughters and Death Without Mercy earned.

I'm recycling what I wrote in 'Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal' and 'The Truth vs. Alex Jones' lead nominees for Outstanding Crime and Justice Documentary for Daughters's other nomination.

In addition to Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story, the nominees for Outstanding Direction Documentary are Frida and Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal with three nominations, followed by Daughters and Madu with two nominations. Right now, I have Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story penciled in, but Daughters also earned six nominations Critics Choice Documentary Awards and Frida earned two, so I'll re-examine my choice when I examine them.
Madu's directors definitely deserve their nomination, but Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story's BAFTA TV Award for Director, Factual makes it the favorite.
After looking at the nominees for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary at the DGA Awards, I now think Daughters is now a co-favorite with Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story. I suspect the documentary directors in the DGA overlap with those in the east coast television academy who vote for these awards. Once again, electorates matter.
Now the second nomination for Death Without Mercy, which I covered in 'Apollo 13: Survival' leads nominees for Outstanding Science and Technology Documentary at the News & Doc Emmy Awards for Wayback Wednesday.

Apollo 13: Survival has the most nominations for Outstanding Editing – Documentary with four, followed by Death without Mercy, Blink, and We Will Dance Again, all with two, and Citizen Nation with just this one. It also has an editing nomination at the BAFTA Film Awards, so it definitely has a strong case to win. Besides, it's an archival documentary, so editing is going to be its strong suit.
I expect to return to this category twice before I make a call, once for We Will Dance Again and the other Outstanding Current Affairs Documentary and again for Blink and Citizen Nation when I finish this category and Outstanding Promotional Announcement – Documentary. I plan on looking at the former after three holidays, Friday the 13th, Flag Day, and Father's Day, beginning tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Previous posts about the 46th News & Doc Emmy Awards
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