Producers Guild Awards: 'Jane,' two Syria docs among nominees for best nonfiction film

Seven docs earn nominations, including Chasing Coral and Earth: One Amazing Day

The Producers Guild of America cast a wide net for its top documentary honor this year, recognizing several films overlooked by other awards gatekeepers. 

The PGA on Monday nominated seven docs for best nonfiction film, including Jeff Orlowski's Chasing Coral, about the impact of climate change on the world's coral reefs, and another environmentally-friendly film, Earth: One Amazing Day, from BBC Earth Films.

The PGA nominated two more films that have mostly flown under the radar: Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower, about a young pro-democracy activist in Hong Kong, and The Newspaperman: The Life and Times of Ben Bradlee, about the celebrated Washington Post editor. 

The other three nominees have enjoyed a much higher profile during awards season: Brett Morgen's Jane, about the pioneering conservationist and primatologist Jane Goodall; Matthew Heineman's City of Ghosts, about the ISIS takeover of Raqqa, Syria, and Evgeny Afineevsky's Cries From Syria, a searing look at that country's disastrous civil war and its impact on the world.

The PGA Awards will be presented January 20, 2018 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills.

Nominees in the best feature film and television categories will be announced by the PGA in early January.

These are the seven nominees for best nonfiction film, in alphabetical order:

Chasing Coral, directed by Jeff Orlowski
City of Ghosts, directed by Matthew Heineman
Cries from Syria, directed by Evgeny Afineevsky
Earth: One Amazing Day, directed by Richard Dale and Lixin Fan
Jane, directed by Brett Morgen
Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower, directed by Joe Piscatella
The Newspaperman: The Life and Times of Ben Bradlee, directed by John Maggio

​Nonfictionfilm.com has written about several of the PGA Awards contenders. See below:

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Related: City of Ghosts director Matthew Heineman on the 'silent slaughter' of Raqqa

>Director Brett Morgen on what he learned from Jane Goodall: 'Jane forced me to be restrained'

>Cries From Syria director Evgeny Afineevsky on brutality of Bashar al-Assad: 'He tried to break his people'

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