It’s not quite a video game winning a film award, but a short film that was part of Respawn’s 2020 VR game Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond has been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject). It’s possibly the first time a video game studio has been nominated for an Oscar.
“Colette” is a short film released by The Guardian, co-produced by Oculus and Respawn Entertainment, with Respawn head Vince Zampella listed in the credits as a co-executive producer. It was made as part of the gallery of documentaries that appeared in Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond, a VR shooter about World War II. As Variety writes, “Colette” follows a French Resistance member as she visits the concentration camp where her brother was killed by Nazis.
On Twitter, the Medal of Honor account wrote, “On behalf of everyone at Respawn, we are incredibly honored that ‘Colette,’ the documentary short that was shot for Medal of Honor: Above & Beyond, has been nominated for an Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject.”
On Twitter, Respawn composer Stephen Barton wrote, “Most film companies don’t get Oscar nominated within their first decade of existence. Most *never* get one. Respawn just became the first game studio ever to be nominated.”
In 2017, a trailer for weird game Everything won a jury prize at the Vienna Shorts Festival, making it eligible for an Oscar nomination.
You can watch “Colette” on The Guardian’s website here.
(H/t PC Gamer)
DISCUSSION
There’s a nice symmetry here since Oscar-winning composer Michael Giacchino (LOST, bunch of Pixar movies, etc) got his start composing video games, including the original Medal of Honor.