The "Cinema Eye Honors" are awards recognizing excellence in nonfiction or documentary filmmaking and includes awards for the disciplines of directing, producing, cinematography and editing. The awards are presented each January in New York and have been held since 2011 at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens. Founded by filmmaker A. J. Schnack and Toronto International Film Festival Documentary Programmer Thom Powers, "Cinema Eye" was created to celebrate artistic craft in nonfiction filmmaking, addressing a perceived imbalance in the field where awards were given for social impact or importance of topic rather than artistic excellence.
The awards are presented by the Cinema Eye organization, which is currently led by AJ Schnack, filmmaker Esther Robinson, filmmaker Nathan Truesdell, producer Andrea Meditch, former Hot Docs programmer Sean Farnel and filmmaker Laura Poitras. Nominations for the awards are determined by voting of top film festival documentary programmers and winners are voted on by an invited membership of more than 500 documentary film experts. Cinema Eye also presents an Audience Choice Prize where voting is open to the public.
The first "Cinema Eye Honors" were presented at the IFC Center in New York City on March 18, 2008.
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