Though Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir (our review) is one of the most talked about documentaries of the year, it was recently made public that the film had not qualified for the Oscar nomination because of a new “simplified” change to the Academy qualification rules. Though the film is not being considered for an Oscar, it’s not being overlooked by another, perhaps more important group.

The International Documentary Association has announced their nominees for the 2008 IDA Documentary Awards competition and the list of films nominated for the “Distinguished Documentary Achievement: Feature” is quite impressive. Along with Forman’s film, the IDA has distinguished Kief Davidson’s Kassim The Dream about World Champion Boxer, Kassim “The Dream” Ouma who was born in Uganda, kidnapped by the rebel army and trained to be a child soldier at the age of 6; Man on Wire James Marsh’s account of tightrope walker Philippe Petit’s high-wire routine performed between New York City’s World Trade Center’s; Gonzalo Arijon’s Stranded: I Have Come From a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains which features, for the first time, survivors of the famous 1972 Andes plane crash telling, in their own words, their story of survival; and Stephen Walker’s moving Young@Heart (our review) which chronicles a season of the Young at Heart Chorus, a group of senior citizens who perform contemporary and classic rock and pop songs.

Along with the competitive awards, the group will also be honouring Werner Herzog with this year’s IDA Career Achievement award, Rob Epstein will receive IDA’s Pioneer Award and the Jacqueline Donnet Emerging Filmmaker Award will go to director Stefan Forbes for Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story.

It’s nice to see such a broad list of documentaries represented. I have a feeling it may be a better cross section than we’re likely to see at Oscar time. The full list of nominees in all of the categories can be found over at indieWire.