Best Documentary Candidates Culled to 15

Making the cut: A still from "The Price of Sugar", Bill Haney's Oscar hopeful.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that the five nominees for best feature-length documentary will be drawn from the following 15 films, listed here in alphabetical order:

1. Autism: The Musical

Filmmaker: Tricia Regan

The story: A woman works with five Los Angeles children, all of whom are diagnosed with autism, to put on a musical play.

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2. Body of War

Filmmakers: Ellen Spiro and Phil Donahue, he of talk-show fame

The story: A 25-year-old Iraq War veteran returns to America paralyzed from the chest down, and full of questions about the basic assumptions he held when he first enlisted.

To learn more, click here.

3. For the Bible Tells Me So

Filmmaker: Dan Karslake

The story: Five families who are Christian consider their beliefs in the context of gay children. Former congressman Dick Gephardt is featured, and talking heads include Harvard's Peter Gomes.

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4. Lake of Fire

Filmmaker: Tony Kaye, the director of American History X

The story: Everybody from Pat Buchanan to Noam Chomsky weighs in on abortion.

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5. Nanking

Filmmakers: Directed by Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman; produced by AOL honcho Ted Leonsis

The story: A look at Japan's brutal 1937 invasion of Nanking, China, during which 200,000 civilians are estimated to have died.

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6. No End in Sight

Filmmaker: Charles Ferguson

The story: Former Bush adminstration officials drop a film's worth of dimes on their former bosses, outlining what went wrong in Iraq.

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7. Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience

Filmmakers: Richard E. Robbins and Tom Yellin

The story: Servicemen and women tell their stories in their own words, through letters home.

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8. Please Vote for Me

Filmmaker: Weijun Chen

The story: Not since Bush v. Gore has an election been as full of intrigue as this electoral battle, in which a class of 7-year-olds vie to serve as class monitor.

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9. The Price of Sugar

Filmmaker: Bill Haney

The story: Father Christopher, a Spanish priest, tries to organize workers on sugar plantations in the Dominican Republic.

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10. A Promise to the Dead: The Exile Journey of Ariel Dorfman

Filmmaker: Peter Raymont

The story: A look at the life of the playwright Ariel Dorfman (Death and the Maiden), one of the few members of the Allende government to survive the 1973 coup in Chile.

To learn more, click here.

11. The Rape of Europa

Filmmakers: Richard Berge, Nicole Newhman, and Bonni Cohen

The story: A chronicle of the Third Reich's theft and destruction of great European art, featuring the story of Gustav Klimt's Gold Painting, which was stolen from a Jewish family inn Vienna, was reclaimed by the family, and was recently purchased for the highest price of any work of art in history.

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12. SiCKO

Filmmaker: Michael Moore

The story: Just how much does the U.S. health care system suck? Moore shows us how much!

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13. Taxi to the Dark Side

Filmmaker: Alex Gibney, director of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

The story: An exploration of the Bush administration's use and justification of unprecedented detention and interrogation techniques.

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14. War/Dance

Filmmaker: Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine

The story: Schoolchildren in war-ravaged Uganda prepare for a school dance competition.

To learn more, click here

15. White Light/Black Rain

Filmmaker: Steven Okazaki, the director of Days of Waiting

The story: Survivors of the nuclear bombings at Hiroshima and Nagaski tell their stories.

To learn more, click here.

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