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 film screened three times daily, but… the programmers [AMC] neglected to do a three-times daily screening within New York or Los Angeles.”
Deadline has reached out to AMC for comment; if we hear back we will update the story.
RELATED: Oscars 2025 Date & Timeline Set; Academy Sticks With Earlier Start Time
The Academy wrote back to Anthony, “The Documentary Branch Executive Committee has reviewed the appeal for KISS THE FUTURE. We regret to inform you that the appeal has been denied, and the film was deemed ineligible. While we know this news is disappointing, we assure you that the situation was thoroughly discussed and evaluated. These difficult decisions are not taken lightly by the Committee, but the process is necessary to be fair and consistent with all entries.
“All determinations from the Executive Committee are final.”
‘Kiss the Future’
Fifth Season
Anthony told Deadline, “This was a passion project for everyone involved and they tried to live up to the spirit of the Academy with a wide theatrical release. A film only has to screen theatrically 21 times to qualify, and ours screened hundreds of times. One theater that played the requisite number of screenings was less than 30 miles outside the qualifying area. It is shocking to be rejected for a programming error, and I would hate to see this happen to any other filmmakers.”
(L-R) ‘Kiss the Future’ executive producer Drew Vinton, producer Matt Damon, director Nenad Cicin-Sain, producer Sarah Anthony, executive producer Jennifer Pitcher, and screenwriter Bill S. Carter in Berlin
Stefanie Loos/AFP via Getty Images
In an interview with Deadline, Kiss the Future director Nenad Cicin-Sain, said, “To be disqualified at this stage… is just devastating.”
The filmmaker said that, ironically, Kiss the Future had lined up a very limited release in December 2023 at IFC in New York that would have qualified the documentary for Oscar consideration a year ago. But at that point AMC stepped up with a proposal for a dramatically larger release.
“We decided a wide release was best for the film — this in fact is what the Academy wants to promote,” Cicin-Sain said. “We informed the Academy we wanted to withdraw from the 2024 awards in order to do a wide theatrical and would resubmit for 2025. They wrote it was ok for us to do this.”
Under “Rule Twelve. Special Rules for the Documentary Feature Film Award,” Academy guidelines say, “The picture must have been publicly exhibited for paid admission in a commercial motion picture theater in one of the six qualifying U.S. metro areas: Los Angeles County; City of New York [five boroughs]; the Bay Area [counties of San Francisco, Marin, Alameda, San Mateo and Contra Costa]; Chicago [Cook County, Illinois]; Dallas-Fort Worth [Dallas County, Tarrant County, Texas]; and Atlanta [Fulton County, Georgia], for a run of at least seven consecutive days. Screenings during the theatrical release must occur at least three times daily, with at least one screening beginning between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. daily.”
While expressing “great respect” for the Academy, Cicin-Sain said an inflexible reading of the rules in this case ignores the bigger picture.
“What they’re doing is they’re enforcing the letter of the rule and not the spirit of the rule,” he said. “And if the spirit of the rule is to put movies in theaters — and that’s what we did by exhibiting it in as many theaters possible, and pulling out of the awards when it was just one theater [in favor of] putting it in in 139 theaters — and then you’re not qualifying, something’s wrong.”
In their August letter to the Academy, Damon, Affleck and Anthony wrote, “AMC would be willing to do another qualifying run in September 2024.” However, according to Cicin-Sain, the documentary branch executive committee dismissed that offer because Kiss the Future premiered on Paramount+ in May of this year, meaning under Academy guidelines it is considered to have debuted on streaming before its qualifying theatrical release.
(L-R) U2’s Adam Clayton, Bono, and producer Matt Damon at the world premiere of ‘Kiss the Future’ in Berlin
JOHN MACDOUGALL/AFP via Getty Images
Kiss the Future, which contains interviews with Bono and fellow U2 band members, as well as Bosnians who endured the siege of Sarajevo, has a 100% approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 98% favorable score from viewers.
Deadline understands from the Academy that it does not have an “official appeals process” for eligibility questions such as that faced by Kiss the Future, but it nonetheless entertained the filmmakers’ request for an exception.
Following the Academy’s final rejection notice, Artists Equity, the production company co-founded by Damon and Affleck, with Drew Vinton in the role of EVP, Creative, provided a statement to Deadline saying, “Of course, we love the movie and would love it to be under consideration.”
Last Wednesday, Natalie Wade, the Academy’s Senior Director, Member Relations and Awards Administration, wrote to Cicin-Sain, “We completely understand your frustration and that this was an honest mistake,” apparently referring to AMC’s programming of Kiss the Future twice a day instead of three times a day in a qualifying market. Wade added, “The film was not ‘under appeal’ – it is not eligible because it did not meet the showtime requirements as outlined in the rules.”
The following day, September 19, Cicin-Sain wrote to Wade and Academy president Janet Yang, repeating a request to present an appeal. He wrote of Kiss the Future, “At the end of the day this film is an antidote to the division we are facing and promotes pluralism and unity with a message of love and hope. It’s also a very entertaining and moving movie that the academy should support not disqualify because of a mistake made not by the producers or filmmakers but a distributor.”
That echoes the plea from Damon, Affleck, and Anthony to the Academy in their August 20 letter. They wrote, “With the war in Ukraine already having lasted two years, and with everything that’s happening in Gaza this film could not be more timely as a cautionary tale against the rise of nationalism, an appeal for peace, and a celebration of the best of the human spirit when faced with adversity. We hope you will allow us the opportunity to attempt to draw more attention to the subject matter.”