‘The Trial of the Chicago 7’ Earns Major Awards Boost with Editors Win

BY SCOTTIE KNOLLIN

For its 71st Eddie Awards, the American Cinema Editors gave its top award to Aaron Sorkin’s “The Trial of the Chicago 7”. The win is a major boost to the Best Picture nominee for next week’s Academy Awards. In the past 15 years, 12 winners of the ACE Eddie Award for a drama feature have gone on to win the Oscar for Best Editing. And, traditionally, the winner of the editing Oscar has one of the highest chances of repeating a win in the top Oscars category.

Throughout this awards season, “Nomadland” has won the majority of groups’ editing awards for its director, writer, editor Chloé Zhao. In fact, Zhao was expected to take home the Eddie Award for the Searchlight drama that is still the frontrunner for the Oscar. “The Trial of the Chicago 7” editor, Alan Baumgarten, beat out other Best Picture nominees “Sound of Metal”, “Mank”, and “Minari” with his Eddie win.

In the other categories, “Soul” took the editing award for animated feature, “Palm Springs” won the award for best edited feature for a comedy film, and “My Octopus Teacher” took the prize for documentary feature. “My Octopus Teacher” is the frontrunner for the Oscar for documentaries.

Outside of the competitive categories, director Spike Lee was given the ACE Golden Eddie Filmmaker of the Year Award.

FULL LIST OF FILM WINNERS:

BEST EDITED FEATURE FILM - DRAMATIC

THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7
Alan Baumgarten, ACE

BEST EDITED FEATURE FILM - COMEDY

PALM SPRINGS
Matthew Friedman, ACE
Andrew Dickler

BEST EDITED ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

SOUL
Kevin Nolting, ACE

BEST EDITED DOCUMENTARY - FEATURE

MY OCTOPUS TEACHER
Pippa Ehrlich
Dan Schwalm