Forecasting the 29th Annual Gotham Awards
Welcome to the unofficial launch of the award season, The Gotham Independent Film Awards. Founded by the Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP), a conglomerate of non-profit organizations that offer networking and apprenticeship programs to independent filmmakers, The Gotham Awards seeks out to honour the best and brightest in independent cinema and showcasing them to a brighter audience. In it's inaugural award, the IFP Gotham Awards awarded Jennie Levingston the (now-defunct) Open Palm Breakthrough Director for her ground-breaking Documentary Paris Is Burning chronicling the New York City drag scene in the 1980. Director Jonathan Demme (Silence of the Lambs), actor John Turturro (Barton Fink), screenwriter Richard Price and cinematographer Ernest R. Dickerson (Jungle Fever) were also honoured that year.
Since then, The Gotham Awards have shuffled they're awards lineup and broadened its scope. Where they solely honoured East coast independent cinema, eligibility now included West Coast funded films and International co-funded productions. In the mid-aughts, The Gotham Awards revamped their award lineup, handing out a Best Feature and Best Documentary awards. Eight years later, they added the rest of what mostly consists their present-day lineup. Coincidently, the organization opened themselves up to criticisms of selling out, awarding much larger budgeted fair in favour of micro-budgeted films. Nominations are selected by individual category sectioning juries
With a nomination roster that reads like The A24 Awards above anything else, the niche film distributor received 20 nominations shared amongst six of its films. Three of those are tied as the nomination leader with 4 nominations a piece. First, Lulu Wang’s The Farewell, an autobiographical account of her process of coping with her grandmother’s terminal cancer diagnosis. The film delves into the fronts ones keep to protect themselves and others from grief. Second, Joe Talbot’s verite-fantasia The Last Black Man In San Francisco, also ruminating on the subject of lies we share to protect ourselves, follows Jimmie as he breaks in, occupies and seeks to purchase his The film is a touching portrait of minority identity in current day America. Lastingly, The Safdie Brothers’ kinetic Uncut Gems, follows Howard Ratner a NYC jeweller who relentlessly defies the odds in pursuing the next big score.
The only non-A24 entry with a tying score of 4 nominations, is being distributed by streaming giant Netflix. Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story, is a semi-autobiographical drama inspired by Mr. Baumbach’s divorce from actress Jennifer Jason Leigh. The drama and it’s central performances given by Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson have been heralded for its candour and rawness since the film’s premiere at the Venice Film Festival last August. Coincidently, Johansson ended up being one of the voting body’s major snubs. The actress was left out of the female acting field that included Florence Pugh, for portraying a college student sucked into the midst of a Swedish cult in Ari Aster’s engrossing thriller Midsommar (another A24 picture), and Alfre Woodard, for portraying a prison warden coming to grips with her morality and the emotional tolls while preparing for her latest execution in Chinonye Chukwu’s breakout film Clemency.
Our Panel consensus picks are as followed:
Best Feature: Marriage Story
Best Documentary: Apollo 11
Breakthrough Director: Olivia Wilde, Booksmart
Best Actor: Adam Driver, Marriage Story
Best Actress: Indecisive
Best Screenplay: Marriage Story
Breakthrough Actor: Noah Jupe, Honey Boy
Audience Award: Hustlers
Breakthrough Longform TV: Chernobyl
Breakthrough Shortform TV: Russian Doll
Please click here to see our panelists individual predictions
Marriage Story’s Laura Dern, Jojo Rabbit’s Sam Rockwell, When They See Us’ Ava DuVernay and FilmNation CEO Glen Basner, will all be honored with Tribute Awards. The The Gotham Awards are being held on Monday December 2nd at the Cipriani Club 55 restaurant in the heart of NYC’s Wall Street. No event host has been announced at this time.
