Documentary Channel Airs Block of Academy Award Winning & Nominated Films

With awards season in full swing, Documentary Channel® (DOC) will present a special four-day "Oscar Weekend" block of Academy Award® winning and nominated favorites in primetime, beginning Thursday, Feb. 24. DOC also will premiere an all-new Oscar-themed special episode of "DocTalk," featuring exclusive interviews with this year's 83rd Academy Award nominees including "Exit Through the Gift Shop" producer Jaimie D'Cruz, "Waste Land" director Lucy Walker, "Restrepo" director Sebastian Junger, and "Inside Job" director Charles Ferguson.

Leading off DOC's weekend quartet on Thursday at 8 p.m. ET/PT is Eugene Boyko's feature-length Canadian documentary "Helicopter Canada," which received an Oscar® nomination for "Best Documentary (Feature)" in 1967. Providing a bird's eye view of the ten Canadian provinces and shot entirely from a helicopter, the film provides breathtaking and spectacular panoramic views of the country. Following is "Born Into Brothels," (9 p.m. ET/PT) winner of the 2004 Academy Award for "Best Documentary (Feature)," which follows several unforgettable children who live in the red light district of Calcutta where their mothers work as prostitutes.

The strong weekend-long lineup also includes 2005 Oscar nominee "The Story of the Weeping Camel" on Saturday, Feb. 26 at 8 p.m. ET/PT. From filmmakers Byambasuren Davaa and Luigi Falorni, the film chronicles a family of herders and their adventures in Mongolia's Gobi region, where they face a crisis when a mother camel suddenly rejects her newborn after a difficult birth.
"The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences applauds Documentary Channel and its efforts to celebrate documentary film by showcasing such a strong line-up of Oscar winning and nominated films," says Ric Robertson, executive administrator of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

"Documentary Channel is proud to honor the Academy Award winning and nominated documentary films of past years as well as provide an in-depth look into this year's Best Documentary Feature nominees," adds James Ackerman, president and CEO of Documentary Channel.
The remainder of Documentary Channel's exclusive "Oscar Weekend" schedule for February is as follows:

Friday, Feb. 25
(8 p.m. ET/PT) "DocTalk: Oscar® Special" features one-on-one interviews with this year's 83rd Academy Award nominees including contenders "Exit Through the Gift Shop" producer Jaimie D'Cruz, "Waste Land" director Lucy Walker, "Restrepo" director Sebastian Junger, and "Inside Job" director Charles Ferguson.
(9 p.m. ET/PT) From director James Longley, 2007 Oscar nominee for "Best Documentary (Feature)" "Iraq In Fragments" is a stunningly photographed, poetically rendered documentary of a war-torn country as seen through the passionately-felt portraits of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.

Saturday, Feb. 26
(6:30 p.m. ET/PT) Academy Award nominee for "Best Documentary (Feature)" in 1978, "High Grass Circus," from directors Tony Ianzelo and Torben Schioler, follows Royal Brothers' Circus in 1976 revealing the true inner workings of a traveling circus. The feature-length documentary captures the 24 hour-a-day brand of magic that the circus evokes while revealing the nature of the people who run it.
(10 p.m. ET/PT) "Flamenco at 5:15," winner of an Academy Award for "Best Documentary (Short)" in 1984, is an impressionistic record of a flamenco dance class given to senior students of the National Ballet School of Canada by two great teachers from Spain, Susana and Antonio Robledo. Directed by Cynthia Scott, the film shows the beautiful young North American dancers, inspired by the flamenco rhythms and mesmerized by Susana's extraordinary energy, joyously merging with an ancient gypsy culture.

Sunday, Feb. 27
(8 p.m. ET/PT) Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine's "War/Dance," which received an Academy Award nomination in 2008 for "Best Documentary (Feature)," follows the courageous efforts of primary students from the Patongo IDP camp in northern Uganda's war zone, as they pour their hearts into winning the country's biggest event of the year, the National Music Competition in Kampala.
(10:30 p.m. ET/PT) "Gravity Is My Enemy," from director John C. Joseph and winner of 1978's Oscar for "Best Documentary (Short)," looks at artist Mark Hicks of Manhattan Beach, Calif., a quadriplegic since falling out of a tree at age 14. Hicks' work is examined, along with a discussion for his being a student at UCLA, culminating with his first gallery show in San Francisco, Calif.
Documentary Channel is primarily available through satellite television services DISH Network (Channel 197) and DIRECTV (Channel 267).

Documentary Channel (DOC) is the USA's first 24-hour television network exclusively devoted to documentary films and the independent documentary filmmaker, providing viewers with round-the-clock opportunities to see fascinating, eclectic and award-winning documentary films of all lengths and genres. For more information on DOC, visit the network Web site at www.documentarychannel.com, in addition to www.facebook.com/DocumentaryChannel, www.myspace.com/DocumentaryChannel or www.twitter.com/doc_channel.

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