26 films received nominations in IFP’s 22nd Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards with Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild, Richard Linklater’s Bernie, Ava DuVernay’s Middle of Nowhere and Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom each receiving two. Winners will be announced on November 26 at Cipriani on Wall Street.
Bernie, Middle of Nowhere and Moonrise Kingdom were nominated in the Best Feature category, joined by Julia Loktev’s The Loneliest Planet and Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master. Previous winners in the category that went on to receive Oscar nominations include The Hurt Locker, The Tree of Life and Winter’s Bone, making it a good early precursor for lower-budget independent movies that may require a bit more attention to be watched by Oscar voters.
Bernie and Moonrise Kingdom were also nominated in the Best Ensemble Performance category, along with David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook, Safety Not Guaranteed and Lynn Shelton’s Your Sister’s Sister. Surprisingly absent in the acting category was The Master, which had received multiple awards at the Venice Film Festival.
One might safely assume that Linklater and Anderson may be frontrunners to win in one or both categories, but Beasts of the Southern Wild may be seen as a favorite in the Breakthrough DIrector and Actor categories in which director Benh Zeitlin and newcomer Quvenzhané Wallis were nominated.
Below you can read the full press release with the full list of nominees:
The Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP), the nations oldest and largest organization of independent filmmakers announced today the nominees for the Gotham Independent Film Awards. Signaling the kick-off to the film awards season, IFPs Gotham Independent Film Awards nominations were given to a total of 26 films across six competitive categories for Best Feature, Best Documentary, Breakthrough Director, Breakthrough Actor, Best Ensemble Performance, and Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You.
The Gotham Awards ceremony will be held on Monday, November 26th at Cipriani Wall Street. In addition to the competitive awards, actors Marion Cotillard and Matt Damon, director David O. Russell, and Participant Media founder Jeff Skoll will each be presented with a career tribute.
As the first major awards ceremony of the film season, the Gotham Independent Film Awards provide critical early recognition and media attention to worthy independent films. Previous winners for Best Feature and Best Documentary include BEGINNERS (2011), THE TREE OF LIFE (2011), BETTER THIS WORLD (2011), WINTERS BONE (2010), THE OATH (2010), THE HURT LOCKER (2009), and FOOD, INC. (2009). The awards are also unique for their ability to assist in catapulting award recipients prominently into national awards season attention, including recent winners and ultimate Oscar® contenders: feature winners BEGINNERS (2011), TREE OF LIFE (2011), WINTERS BONE (2010) and THE HURT LOCKER (2009); Breakthrough Actors Melissa Leo (2008), Ellen Page (2007), Rinko Kikuchi (2006) and Amy Adams (2005).
Primary criteria for nomination consideration includes that the works be independently distributed American feature-length films (US-based or US-born directors and producers) made with a point of view. For a complete list of criteria, see http://gotham.ifp.org.
Since 2004, when IFP increased the number of the Gotham Award categories, expanded the criteria to include filmmakers beyond New York, and moved the awards ceremony to awards season, nominees have been selected by groups of distinguished film critics, journalists, festival programmers, and film curators. Separate juries of writers, directors, actors, producers, editors and others directly involved in making films will determine the final Gotham Award recipients.
This year 21 such writers and programmers participated in the nomination process, considering 211 eligible submissions. The Nominating Committees for the 2012 Gotham Independent Film Awards were:
Nominating Committee for Best Feature and Breakthrough Director:
Scott Foundas, Associate Program Director, Film Society of Lincoln Center; Contributing Editor, Film Comment
Ann Hornaday, Film Critic, The Washington Post
Glenn Kenny, Chief Film Critic, MSN Movies
Karina Longworth, Film Writer, LA Weekly & Village Voice
Wesley Morris, Film Critic, The Boston Globe
Nominating Committee for Best Ensemble Performance and Breakthrough Actor:
Peter Debruge, Senior Film Critic/Associate Features Editor, Variety
Ed Gonzales, Film Editor and Co-Founder, Slant Magazine
Eric Kohn, Lead Film Critic, Indiewire
Leah Rozen, Movie Critic, The Wrap.com and freelance writer
Elizabeth Weitzman, Film Critic, New York Daily News
Nominating Committee for Best Documentary:
Cynthia Fuchs, Film-TV Editor, PopMatters
Tom Hall, Artistic Director, Sarasota Film Festival
Rachel Rosen, Artistic Director, San Francisco Film Society
Ronnie Scheib, Film Critic, Variety
Sky Sitney, Festival Director, AFI-Discovery Channel Silverdocs Festival
Nominating Committee for Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You:
Joshua Siegel, Associate Curator, Department of Film, Museum of Modern Art;
and members of the editorial staff of Filmmaker Magazine: Scott Macaulay (Editor-in-Chief), Nick Dawson, Brandon Harris, Ray Pride, Alicia Van Couvering
From master film artists to richly talented newcomers, this years nominees comprise a diverse group of filmmakers and actors that defines the spectrum of independent film today said Joana Vicente, Executive Director of IFP. In addition to celebrating the work and the community, we also hope that the Gotham Award attention will encourage more audiences to explore the range of vibrant, entertaining, challenging, and innovative films represented here.
The nominations for the 2012 Gotham Independent Film Awards are:
Best Feature
Bernie
Richard Linklater, director; Richard Linklater, Ginger Sledge, Celine Rattray, Martin Shafer, Liz Glotzer, Matt Williams, David McFadzean, Judd Payne, Dete Meserve, producers (Millennium Entertainment)
The Loneliest Planet
Julia Loktev, director; Jay Van Hoy, Lars Knudsen, Helge Albers, Marie Therese Guirgis, producers (Sundance Selects)
The Master
Paul Thomas Anderson, director; Joanne Sellar, Daniel Lupi, Paul Thomas Anderson, Megan Ellison, producers (The Weinstein Company)
Middle of Nowhere
Ava DuVernay, director; Howard Barish, Ava DuVernay, Paul Garnes, producers (AFFRM and Participant Media)
Moonrise Kingdom
Wes Anderson, director; Wes Anderson, Scott Rudin, Steven Rales, Jeremy Dawson, producers (Focus Features)
Best Documentary
Detropia
Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, directors; Heidi Ewing, Rachel Grady, Craig Atkinson, producers (Loki Films)
How to Survive a Plague
David France, director; Howard Gertler, David France, producers (Sundance Selects)
Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present
Matthew Akers, director; Jeff Dupre, Maro Chermayeff, producers (HBO Documentary Films and Music Box Films)
Room 237
Rodney Ascher, director; Tim Kirk, producer (IFC Midnight)
The Waiting Room
Peter Nicks, director; Peter Nicks, Linda Davis, William B. Hirsch, producers (International Film Circuit)
Best Ensemble Performance
Bernie
Jack Black, Shirley MacLaine, Matthew McConaughey (Millennium Entertainment)
Moonrise Kingdom
Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, Jared Gilman, Kara Hayward, Jason Schwartzman, Bob Balaban (Focus Features)
Safety Not Guaranteed
Aubrey Plaza, Mark Duplass, Jake Johnson, Karan Soni, Jenica Bergere, Kristen Bell, Jeff Garlin, Mary Lynn Rajskub (Film District)
Silver Linings Playbook
Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver, Chris Tucker, Anupam Kher (The Weinstein Company)
Your Sisters Sister
Emily Blunt, Rosemarie Dewitt, Mark Duplass (IFC Films)
Breakthrough Director
Zal Batmanglij for Sound of My Voice (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky for Francine (Factory 25 and The Film Sales Company)
Jason Cortlund and Julia Halperin for Now, Forager (Argot Pictures)
Antonio Méndez Esparza for Aquí y Allá (Here and There) (Torch Films)
Benh Zeitlin for Beasts of the Southern Wild (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Breakthrough Actor
Mike Birbiglia in Sleepwalk with Me (IFC Films)
Emayatzy Corinealdi in Middle of Nowhere (AFFRM and Participant Media)
Thure Lindhardt in Keep the Lights On (Music Box Films)
Melanie Lynskey in Hello, I Must Be Going (Oscilloscope Laboratories)
Quvenzhané Wallis in Beasts of the Southern Wild (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You
Kid-Thing
David Zellner, director; Nathan Zellner, Producer
An Oversimplification of Her Beauty
Terence Nance, director; Terence Nance, Andrew Corkin, James Bartlett, producers
Red Flag
Alex Karpovsky, director; Alex Karpovsky, Michael Bowes, producers
Sun Dont Shine
Amy Seimetz, director; Kim Sherman, Amy Seimetz, producers
Tiger Tail in Blue
Frank V. Ross, director; Adam Donaghey, Drew Durepos, producers
For the second consecutive year, IFP is proud present the euphoria Calvin Klein Spotlight on Women Filmmakers Live the Dream grant, a $25,000 cash award for an alumna of IFPs Independent Filmmaker Labs. This grant aims to further the careers of emerging women directors by supporting the completion, distribution and audience engagement strategies of their first feature film.
The nominees are:
Leah Meyerhoff, director, I BELIEVE IN UNICORNS
Stacie Passon, director, CONCUSSION
Visra Vichit Vadakan, KARAOKE GIRL
The 3rd Annual Gotham Independent Film Audience Award will be voted on again by the independent film community, 230,000 film fans worldwide. To be eligible, a U.S. film must have won an audience award at one of the top 50 U.S. or Canadian film festivals from November 2011 through October 2012. Voting begins today at http://gotham.ifp.org/audience_award for the 31 films on the eligibility list. The nominees will be announced November 5th, and the winner will be revealed at the Gotham Awards ceremony.
The recipient of the Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near YouÒ award is determined by the editorial staff of Filmmaker Magazine, a publication of IFP, and a curator from The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). All of these nominees will also be screened for the public at MoMA from November 16-19, 2012.
The Premier Sponsors of the 22nd annual Gotham Independent Film Awards are Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) and The New York Times, Presenting Sponsor euphoria Calvin Klein, Official Water FIJI Water, Official Spirit Russian Standard Vodka, Official Wine Partner Mionetto Prosecco, Official Partners: charitybuzz; MoMA; Andaz Wall Street. Additionally, the awards will be promoted nationally in an eight-page special advertising section in The New York Times on November 16th, 2012.
2012 Gotham Independent Film Awards Alphabetical List of Nominated Films
Aquí y Allá (Here and There) – Breakthrough Director
Beasts of the Southern Wild – Breakthrough Director &Breakthrough Actor
Bernie – Best Feature & Best Ensemble Performance
Detropia – Best Documentary
Francine – Breakthrough Director
Hello, I Must Be Going – Breakthrough Actor
How to Survive a Plague – Best Documentary
Keep the Lights On – Breakthrough Actor
Kid-Thing – Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You
The Loneliest Planet – Best Feature
Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present – Best Documentary
The Master – Best Feature
Middle of Nowhere – Best Feature & Breakthrough Actor
Moonrise Kingdom – Best Feature & Best Ensemble Performance
Now, Forager – Breakthrough Director
An Oversimplification of Her Beauty – Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You
Red Flag – Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You
Room 237 – Best Documentary
Safety Not Guaranteed – Best Ensemble Performance
Silver Linings Playbook – Best Ensemble Performance
Sleepwalk with Me – Breakthrough Actor
Sound of My Voice – Breakthrough Director
Sun Dont Shine – Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You
Tiger Tail in Blue – Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You
The Waiting Room – Best Documentary
Your Sisters Sister – Best Ensemble Performance
You can click here for information on how to attend.
