Apollo 11

Apollo 11 is a 2019 American documentary film edited, produced and directed by Todd Douglas Miller. It focuses on the 1969 Apollo 11 mission, the first spaceflight from which men walked on the Moon. The film consists solely of archival footage, including 70 mm film previously unreleased to the public, and does not feature narration, interviews or modern recreations. The Saturn V rocket, Apollo crew consisting of Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins, and Apollo program Earth-based mission operations engineers are prominently featured in the film. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24, 2019, and was released theatrically in the United States by Neon on March 1, 2019. Apollo 11 received acclaim from critics and grossed $15 million. The film won a leading five awards at the 4th Critics' Choice Documentary Awards, including Best Documentary Feature. It also received five nominations at the 72nd Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Cinematography for a Nonfiction Program for Aldrin and Collins, winning three for its editing and sound. Production In late 2016, Todd Douglas Miller had recently completed work on The Last Steps, a documentary about Apollo 17, when British archival producer and film editor Stephen Slater suggested making a similarly themed documentary for the upcoming 50th anniversary of Apollo 11. CNN Films subsequently became a partner in the film. Miller's conception of the film was centered on a direct cinema approach. The final film contains no voice-over narration or interviews beyond what was available in the contemporary source material. Portions of the mission are illustrated by animated graphics depicting the parts of the Apollo spacecraft as line drawings, the designs of which are based on the cel-animated graphics in Theo Kamecke's 1971 documentary Moonwalk One. In addition, three wordless biographical sequences summarise the lives of Edwin Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins up to 1969 by means of family photographs and archive footage.