‘I Am: Celine Dion' will now compete for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking at Emmys — so what's the difference?
This juried award, presented at the Creative Arts Emmys since 2005, honors documentaries that "showcase an exceptional filmmaker's vision, compelling storytelling, artistic innovation, and the ability to inform, transport, impact, enlighten, and create a meaningful, indelible work that elevates the art of documentary filmmaking." Notably, films selected for this category are not eligible to compete in Best Informational Series or Special or Best Documentary or Nonfiction Special.
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What's the difference between Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking and Best Documentary or Nonfiction Special?
According to the 2025 Emmys rulebook, documentaries with an aggregate theatrical release exceeding 70 days must enter the Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking category. They are ineligible for competition in the Documentary or Nonfiction Special or Hosted Nonfiction Series or Special categories. The television broadcast or streaming debut of these documentaries must occur within one year of their initial public exhibition, excluding film festival screenings, which do not count as theatrical screenings. Programs nominated for an Oscar in any category are also barred from submitting.
In essence, the Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking category was created to celebrate documentaries that had a robust theatrical run before airing on television. For example, Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, another standout film that was in contention for last year's Best Documentary Feature Oscar, will also compete in this category.
Speaking to Gold Derby last year, director Irene Taylor reflected on her initial surprise when approached about the project. "I did not know Céline before this film," she admitted. "In fact, I was a little bit surprised when a producer contacted me — someone who had worked closely with her and her management in the past. She said she was thinking of me for this possible film that Céline was open to. I was surprised because my films are very much character-driven, but I had never focused on someone with as much celebrity as Céline has."
As the film delves into Dion's struggles with a long-hidden illness, Taylor speculated why the singer chose her for the project. "I think Céline was looking for someone she could tell her secret to. That's really what the film is about — this unfortunate lie that she had been telling the world." Filmed more than two years ago, Taylor sought to focus the most pivotal and deeply challenging period in Dion's life. "It would have been out of bounds just to do a straightforward biopic when her body was going through this tumultuous detox off of medications. She was trying to figure out what was happening with her vocal cords. She was also at home with her children, adjusting to having the kind of time she hadn't had for decades. It was very clear that the film needed to focus on this exceptional period of her life."
A performer since childhood, Dion's identity has long been intertwined with her role as a global entertainer. "Céline began performing before she was even a teenager, so she didn't necessarily know how to step out of that role," Taylor explained. "I wanted the film to have some balance between the struggle and that essential talent and joyful person Céline is at heart," she explained, adding that these elements helped "brighten up the film a little bit."
One of the film's most harrowing moments captures Dion experiencing a medical crisis while undergoing therapy for her illness. Reflecting on the scene, Taylor revealed, "We call it a medical episode because her body just goes into this rigid stance, and we didn't know if she was breathing." Initially, the crew prioritized Dion's safety, but it quickly became clear that she was in capable hands. "Her bodyguard and her physical therapist had a protocol given to them by doctors of exactly what to do," Taylor explained. Ultimately, they decided to continue filming. "Céline had told us, 'Don't shy away. Always film, and I'll tell you to stop.' Remarkably, Céline never asked to see the footage — she trusted us to document her truth."
I Am: Celine Dion is streaming on Prime Video.
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We cut from footage of Doctor M'Benga and Nurse Chapel failing to save the life of a Lutani scientist mortally wounded by the Jikaru after attempting to stop Enterprise from escorting it from its homeworld straight to an interview between Beto and M'Benga, where the former probes the latter about his military service in the Klingon-Federation war. Similarly, in his interview with Uhura—for who Beto has been introduced this season as a potential romantic interest—he cruelly surprises her with the revelation that one of the only friends she made at Starfleet Academy was killed in action aboard the U.S.S. Cayuga during the events of last season's finale in an attempt to provoke a shock reaction, taking advantage of their closeness in the process. Again and again throughout the bulk of 'What Is Starfleet?' Beto establishes a very clear bias in his framing, with little in the way of real tangible evidence outside of the combative tone of leading questions, or the irritance he attempts to provoke by shoving his drones in everyone's faces. It undercuts the valid question at the core of his argument about Starfleet's conflicting duties and ideals for the audience, fictional or otherwise, because the documentary becomes less and less about that question, and more and more about why it seems that Beto wants to ask a question he apparently knows the answer to in the first place. Even though he is largely off camera throughout, 'What Is Starfleet?' as a documentary makes its documentarian the subject—and although that is a perfectly reasonable approach for the medium in many ways, it almost certainly isn't for a documentary made off of the back of what is believed by that documentarian to be investigative reporting aboard a perceived military warship. It's not helped then that around 80% of the way in, 'What Is Starfleet?'—both the documentary and the episode—turns its vision on a dime. After Uhura communicates with the Jikaru and learns of its desire to be euthanized and the extent to which the Lutani have bioengineered it into a weapon, we see a stark sit-down between herself and Beto from an off-angle where she plainly tells him that he came into making this documentary angry and with a point to prove out of spite: he was mad that his sister joined Starfleet and left him behind, and he was mad that she got hurt in service of the organization that took her from him. Being told off, in combination with the Enterprise's decision to go against its initial orders and aid the Jikaru in killing itself, turns the final act of the documentary and episode into a noble celebration of Starfleet's ideals. Actually everything's fine, and Starfleet is very good, and at the end of the day, as chintzy interview narration from Uhura tells us as the documentary closes over shots of the Enterprise bridge crew sharing dinner in Pike's quarters, the answer to 'What Is Starfleet?' is the people that serve in it. And with that, 'What Is Starfleet?' fails to be both an effective documentary and an effective episode of Star Trek. Even putting aside that Beto's anti-Starfleet bias came out of nowhere in this episode, despite his prior appearances, the result of the last-minute tonal change renders both the documentary and the episode's potential critiques of Starfleet as an organization impotent. The documentary framing means the episode's narrative around the Lutani mission is not given the chance to decompress and consider the emotional impact on any of our characters; they just get to be shown having a nice time and having dinner together. Given its metatextual existence as a documentary, Beto's clarity of vision as a filmmaker is muddied into flip-flopping from one extreme to another, from hit piece to puff piece, because he got told off by a girl that he likes. If this were a real documentary, Beto changing his mind should've led to it being reconstructed in the edit process entirely—even to make the fact that he came into this process with a preconceived notion that was ultimately challenged and proved incorrect the narrative arc of the piece, if not just to avoid the final product looking like two fragments of two radically different documentaries. 'What Is Starfleet?', both as an episode and as a documentary within the universe of Star Trek, ultimately has no idea what it actually wants to say about the question that Star Trek has tried to wrangle with for over half a century at this point. And if that was going to be the case, then maybe Beto should've killed his story before it ever got on air. 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