"A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night", "Boyhood", "Still Alice", "Birdman" lead Gotham IFP nominees!
Voting for the 24th Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards by IFP, the first major awards ceremony of the winter awards season, began last week. Voters have until Wednesday, November 26th, to cast their ballots.
There are 24 independent films that received nominations this year in seven competitive categories including Best Feature, Best Documentary, Best Actor, Best Actress , Breakthrough Actor, the Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director award and the Gotham Audience Award.
In addition to the competitive awards, Gotham Award Tributes will be given to actor Tilda Swinton, director Bennett Miller and Industry Tribute recipient Netflix’s Ted Sarandos. The nominating committee for the Best Actor category also decided to award a collective Special Jury Award to the three leading stars of "Foxcatcher" – Steve Carell, Mark Ruffalo, and Channing Tatum – for their fine ensemble work.
As the first major awards ceremony of the film season, the Gotham Independent Film Awards by IFP provide critical early recognition and media attention to worthy independent films. 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.
Nominees were selected by committees of 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. Twenty writers, critics and programmers participated in the nomination process, considering 199 eligible submissions.
“Each year the Gotham Awards honor the best work from our independent storytellers and help new audiences discover their work. We congratulate this year’s nominees, from the master film artists to the talented newcomers, a true representation of the rich and diverse range of today’s independent filmmaking,” said Joana Vicente, Executive Director of IFP and the Made in NY Media Center. “We are grateful to our nominating committees of film critics, journalists, programmers and film curators for their dedication to selecting the nominees from so many worthy submissions.”
The Gotham Awards ceremony will be held two weeks from now on Monday, December 1st at Cipriani Wall Street. Good luck to all.
The NY and LA film critics will soon announce their nominations. The National Board of Review will follow along with the HFPA Golden Globes. Oscar nominations will not be known until January 2015.
The 2014 Gotham Independent Film Award nominations are:
Best Feature
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Alejandro G. Iñárritu, director; Alejandro G. Iñárritu, John Lesher, Arnon Milchan, James W. Skotchdopole, producers (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Boyhood - WINNER (My Prediction)
Richard Linklater, director; Richard Linklater, Cathleen Sutherland, Jonathan Sehring, John Sloss, producers (IFC Films)
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Wes Anderson, director; Wes Anderson, Scott Rudin, Steven Rales, Jeremy Dawson, producers (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Love Is Strange
Ira Sachs, director; Lucas Joaquin, Jay Van Hoy, Lars Knudsen, Ira Sachs, Jayne Baron Sherman, producers (Sony Pictures Classics)
Under the Skin
Jonathan Glazer, director; Nick Wechsler, James Wilson, producers (A24)
Best Documentary
Actress
Robert Greene, director; Douglas Tirola, Susan Bedusa, Robert Greene, producers (The Cinema Guild)
CITIZENFOUR
Laura Poitras, director; Laura Poitras, Mathilde Bonnefoy, Dirk Wilutzky, producers (RADiUS, Participant Media, and HBO Documentary Films)
Life Itself - WINNER (My Prediction)
Steve James, director; Zak Piper, Steve James, Garrett Basch, producers (Magnolia Pictures and CNN Films)
Manakamana
Stephanie Spray & Pacho Velez, directors; Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Véréna Paravel, producers (The Cinema Guild)
Point and Shoot
Marshall Curry, director; Marshall Curry, Elizabeth Martin, Matthew Van Dyke, producers (The Orchard and American Documentary / POV)
Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director Award
Ana Lily Amirpour for A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Kino Lorber)
- WINNER (My Prediction)
James Ward Byrkit for Coherence (Oscilloscope Laboratories)
Dan Gilroy for Nightcrawler (Open Road Films)
Eliza Hittman for It Felt Like Love (Variance Films)
Justin Simien for Dear White People (Roadside Attractions and Lionsgate)
Best Actor
Bill Hader in The Skeleton Twins (Roadside Attractions and Lionsgate)
Ethan Hawke in Boyhood (IFC Films)
Oscar Isaac in A Most Violent Year (A24)
Michael Keaton in Birdman (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
- WINNER (My Prediction)
Miles Teller in Whiplash (Sony Pictures Classics)
Best Actress
Patricia Arquette in Boyhood (IFC Films)
Gugu Mbatha-Raw in Beyond the Lights (Relativity Media)
Julianne Moore in Still Alice (Sony Pictures Classics)
- WINNER (My Prediction)
Scarlett Johansson in Under the Skin (A24)
Mia Wasikowska in Tracks (The Weinstein Company)
Breakthrough Actor
Riz Ahmed in Nightcrawler (Open Road Films)
Macon Blair in Blue Ruin (RADiUS)
Ellar Coltrane in Boyhood (IFC Films)
- WINNER (My Prediction)
Joey King in Wish I Was Here (Focus Features)
Jenny Slate in Obvious Child (A24)
Tessa Thompson in Dear White People (Roadside Attractions and Lionsgate)
Gotham Independent Film Audience Award
Actress
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Boyhood
- WINNER (My Prediction)
CITIZENFOUR
Coherence
Dear White People
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
The Grand Budapest Hotel
It Felt Like Love
Life Itself
Love Is Strange
Manakamana
Nightcrawler
Point and Shoot
Under the Skin
Spotlight on Women Filmmakers ‘Live the Dream’ Grant
For the fourth 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 IFP’s 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:
Garrett Bradley, director, Below Dreams
Claire Carré, director, Embers
Chloé Zhao, director, Songs My Brothers Taught Me
XXX
Raymond Lo
