Ballets Russes. Daniel Geller, Dayna Goldfine

Unearthing a treasure trove of archival footage, filmmakers Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine have fashioned a dazzlingly entrancing ode to the re­volutionary twentieth-century dance troupe known as the Ballets Russes. What began as a group of Russian refugees who never danced in Russia became not one but two rival dance troupes who fought the infamous “bal­let battles” that consumed London society before World War II.

BALLETS RUSSES maps the company’s Diaghilev-era beginnings in turn-of-the-century Paris--when artists such as Nijinsky, Balanchine, Pi­casso, Miró, Matisse, and Stravinsky united in an unparalleled collabora­tion--to its halcyon days of the 1930s and ’40s, when the Ballets Russes toured America, astonishing audiences schooled in vaudeville with artistry never before seen, to its demise in the 1950s and ’60s when rising costs, rocketing egos, outside competition, and internal mismanagement ulti­mately brought this revered company to its knees.

3 wins & 1 nomination