Emotional documentary makes Maya one of Australia’s best chances at the Oscars

An emotional documentary about the execution of a Texas death row prisoner has made producer Maya Gnyp one of Australia’s best chances of winning an Oscar at the 97th Academy Awards on Monday.

“It’s a really, really exciting time,” Gnyp said from Los Angeles. “You never really know what’s in store for a film.

Australian producer Maya Gnyp, who is nominated for best short documentary for I Am Ready, Warden.Credit: Getty Images

“You make it over many, many years, [so] it’s humbling, and we’re just very thankful to be here.”

Gnyp, who is best known for the documentaries In Bob We Trust and Mystify: Michael Hutchence, has been nominated with American director Smriti Mundhra for best documentary short for I Am Ready, Warden.

It’s a wrenching 37-minute film about the lead-up to the execution of John Henry Ramirez, including interviews with him, his son and the son of the man he stabbed to death.

Texas death row prisoner John Henry Ramirez in the Oscar-nominated short documentary I Am Ready, Warden.Credit: MTV Documentary Films

“We really wanted to focus on the humanity,” Gnyp said. “We didn’t want to make an ‘issue film’ really.

“We wanted people to make up their own minds about it. But … a lot of people have come up to us to say the film has changed their perspective of the death penalty.”

Australia’s other strongest chance of an Oscar is cinematographer Greig Fraser, who is nominated for shooting Dune: Part Two. He won for Dune: Part One three years ago.

The country’s other nominees are Guy Pearce for his brilliant supporting actor turn in The Brutalist; director Adam Elliot and producer Liz Kearney for the animated feature film Memoir of a Snail; David Clayton, Peter Stubbs, Keith Herft and Luke Millar for visual effects on Better Man; and Rodney Burke for visual effects on Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.

Nominated again: Greig Fraser on the set of Dune.Credit: Warner Bros

While the three short-film Oscars – for documentary, animation and live-action – are nowhere near as high-profile or glamorous as the feature film awards, they matter just as much for the nominees.

“This kind of acknowledgment of an Academy Award is really important for shorts too,” Gnyp said. “We always say that sometimes it’s harder to make a shorter film than a longer one.”

She hopes the Oscars attention helps the film and TV projects that she and her partners at Meralta Films have been developing in the US and Australia.

So what has Oscars success meant for past Australian short-film winners?

Elliot, who is back at the Oscars after more than two decades, said it was a surreal experience when he won best animated short for Harvie Krumpet in 2004.

Adam Elliot and producer Melanie Coombs with their Oscar for best animated short film for Harvie Krumpet in 2004.Credit: Mike Blake

“Towards the end of the project, we ran out of money,” he said. “My partner dumped me, I had to move home with my parents and I went on the dole. The day we won, I was actually meant to put in my dole form.”

But Elliot found the Oscar was “a golden crowbar” for getting access to Hollywood executives.

“The doors don’t quite open, but it allows you to at least engage with investors and certainly studios,” he said.

While Elliot’s Hollywood meetings did not lead anywhere – he realised he was more comfortable working at home in Melbourne on his own projects – the Oscar helped when it came to the challenging financing of his first feature film, 2009’s Mary and Max.

“We kept being told there was no market for adult animation,” he said. “But we ended up opening the Sundance Film Festival, and we sold to countries all around the world. The success of that film allowed me to keep making films.”

The Oscars were a vivid experience for Shaun Tan, who won best animated short with The Lost Thing in 2011, but he was more interested in working on books than another film.

“There was a flurry of media interest for about three weeks, and then nothing,” he said.

Tan went back to finishing his book Rules of Summer.

Co-directors Shaun Tan (right) and Andrew Ruhemann with their Oscar for best animated short film for The Lost Thing in 2011.Credit: AP

“I was doing a lot of landscape painting, and it was actually a nice reset to just go back to doing something that, for me, is a very old practice,” he said.

“I found the whole experience was fascinating but a bit discombobulating, as you can imagine, for an introverted artist to be thrust into that world then slingshotted back again into shopping at Coles and looking after things at home.”

While Tan has been meeting filmmakers about adapting his graphic novel The Arrival into a feature film for years – and still is – the Oscar has not really helped.

“The award is maybe helpful in getting people to look at what you do, but it doesn’t really change their opinion about what you’re doing, which is a good thing,” he said.

Follow our Oscars live blog from 8am on Monday at smh.com.au and theage.com.au. The ceremony begins at 11am.

Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.