Filmmaker Scott Hamilton Kennedy's powerful and engaging documentary "The Garden" truly stands among the best long-form docs to see release last year, and his 2009 Academy Award

nomination for Best Documentary Feature is ample proof. In fact by this point, "The Garden" has collected top honors at nearly every festival it's screened at, even being presented the Sterling US Feature Jury prize at the prestigious Silverdocs documentary festival "for its tenacity in storytelling the face of injustice." Not bad for a filmmaker relatively new to the doc making scene.

That he has just one previous feature on his resume makes the praise Kennedy's latest film has garnered all the more impressive. In his documentary debut "OT: Our Town," Kennedy turns his focus on 24 brave students of Compton, California's infamous Dominguez High School as they mount the first dramatic production the school has attempted in more than 20 years (a production of Thornton Wilder’s eponymous classic “Our Town”). And though “OT” lacks the emotional resonance that “The Garden” has by the bushel (pun intended), it clearly marks Kennedy as a documentarian to watch and showcases his ability to juggle multiple characters and storylines within a single film. Scott’s films also have a very polished and cinematic look to them, which calls back to his humble beginnings as a music video director and also his work with everyone from legendary Hollywood penny-pincher Roger Corman to toy company Mattel.

It’s yet another testament to his ability, that in a year where every film among the Oscar nominees  is powerful and engaging, “The Garden” not only holds its own but stands out. And though the documentary world has clearly already accepted Scott Hamilton Kennedy as a filmmaker to watch, he’s already poised to do what well-known doc makers such as Seth Gordon (“King of Kong”) and Terry Zwigoff (“Crumb”) have done before and transition from the doc world to the fictional world seamlessly.

In fact, Kennedy’s next project is a fictionalized adaptation of his own film “OT: Our Town,” and though truth is often, as they say, stranger than fiction, Kennedy has earned our attention, and we’ll be keeping an eye out for work in the years to come. This year’s Oscar nomination may not be his last.

Chris Dortch II