By the 14th Academy Awards, there was still no Oscar designated for documentary features. One such film had won an Academy Award, but that was in the Best Cinematography category. Meanwhile, short documentaries were honored throughout the 1930s. There was even a category meant specifically for nonfiction shorts, Best Live Action Short Subject (Novelty), from the 5th to the 8th Academy Awards. At the 14th ceremony, held in February 1942, the Best Documentary (Short Subject) category was introduced. One year later, shorts and features (none of them more than an hour in length) were lumped together for a Best Documentary category. The Academy wouldn’t give out its first Oscar for Best Documentary (Feature) until its 16th show.
At the 14th Academy Awards, however, two medium-length documentaries — both too long to be considered shorts by the organization and therefore treated instead as features — were recognized separately and specially. Target for Tonight received a Special Award “for its vivid and dramatic presentation of the heroism of the RAF.” Well, technically, the honor went to the British Ministry of Information. And for the film Kukan (a.k.a. Kukan: The Battle Cry of China or Kukan: The Secret of Unconquerable China), Rey Scott received a Special Award “for his extraordinary achievement in producing…the film record of China’s struggle, including its photography with a 16mm camera under the most difficult and dangerous conditions.”
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These honorary Oscars were a tease of things to come. Short documentaries were much more common, but longer-form nonfiction works also deserved accolades, especially if they aided the recently declared war effort. As with the Best Documentary (Short Subject) category, nominees and winners in the Best Documentary (Feature) category would primarily consist of films related to World War II, its causes, and its aftermath for the award’s first five years. Both of the documentary Special Awards honorees were released in the U.S. months before the country entered the war, and it’s difficult to imagine that they’d have been celebrated without the official declaration. It’s also difficult to imagine them not being celebrated after that decision.