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By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

Posted Monday, November 30th, 2009 - Comments Off on The Gotham Awards winners
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The Gotham Awards winners

The two most interesting awards for me: Nods for the relatively low-grossing marvel Hurt Locker, and for Best Film Not Playing Near You (for which I was a juror) for Ry Russo-Young’s You Wont Miss Me, which I liked a lot at Sundance. The full list of the IFP’s indie nods below. The Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP), the nation’s oldest and largest organization of independent filmmakers, announced today the winners of the 19th Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards™ at a ceremony held at New York City’s Cipriani Wall Street. Twenty-two films received nominations in six competitive categories, including: Best Feature, Best Documentary, Breakthrough Director, Breakthrough Actor, Gothams 2009_613.jpegBest Ensemble Performance and Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You®. For the second year, the recipient of the Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You award will receive a cash award of $5,000 provided by Reiff & Associates, a full service brokerage firm specializing in Arts & Entertainment Insurance.
In addition to the competitive awards, career tributes were presented to actors Natalie Portman and Stanley Tucci, filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow and producer/executives Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, Co-Chairman of Working Title Films.
Best Feature presented by actress Shohreh Aghdashloo.
THE HURT LOCKER Directed and produced by Kathryn Bigelow; Written and produced by Mark Boal; Produced by Nicolas Chartier and Greg Shapiro. The Best Feature Jury: actress Shohreh Aghdashloo; filmmakers Julie Taymor and William Friedkin, producer Wendy Finerman and musician/composer Stewart Copeland.
Best Documentary presented by actor Melonie Diaz and filmmaker Brett Morgen
FOOD, INC. Directed and produced by Robert Kenner; Produced by Elise Pearlstein The Best Documentary Jury: editor Sabine Hoffman and filmmakers Edet Belzberg, Albert and Allen Hughes, Brett Morgen and Julia Reichert.
Breakthrough Director Award presented by actors Rosie Perez and Anthony Mackie
ROBERT SIEGEL Writer and director, BIG FAN. T Breakthrough Director Jury: actors William H. Macy and Rosie Perez, filmmaker Marc Forster, producer Heather Rae, director of photography Matthew Libatique, and editor Christopher Tellefsen.
Breakthrough Actor Award presented by actors Ellen Burstyn and Oliver Platt
CATALINA SAAVEDRA Actress, THE MAID. The Breakthrough Actor Jury included: actors Ellen Burstyn, Melonie Diaz and Oliver Platt, and filmmakers Jesse Peretz and David O. Russell.
Best Ensemble Performance Award presented by actress and author Brooke Shields and writer/director Richard LaGravenese. JEREMY RENNER, ANTHONY MACKIE, BRIAN GERAGHTY, RALPH FIENNES, GUY PEARCE, DAVID MORSE AND EVANGELINE LILLY in THE HURT LOCKER. The Best Ensemble Performance Jury: actors Dylan Baker, America Ferrera, Brooke Shields, writer/director Richard LaGravenese, and producer Susan Stover.
Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You Award presented by actors Patricia Clarkson and Sam Rockwell. YOU WONT MISS ME Ry Russo-Young, director, producer and co-writer.


The recipient of The Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You™ award was determined by the editors of Filmmaker magazine, a publication of IFP, and a curator from The Museum of Modern Art.
********************
The Premier sponsor of the 2009 Gotham Independent Film Awards™ is The New York Times. The awards were promoted nationally in an eight-page special advertising section in The New York Times on Tuesday, November 24th. Presenting Sponsors: A Diamond Is Forever, Focus Features, Stella Artois and Universal Pictures.
About Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP)
After debuting with a program in the 1979 New York Film Festival, the nonprofit IFP has evolved into the nation’s oldest and largest organization of independent filmmakers, and also the premier advocate for them. Since its start, IFP has supported the production of 7,000 films and provided resources to more than 20,000 filmmakers’ voices that otherwise might not have been heard. IFP believes that independent films broaden the palette of cinema, seeding the global culture with new ideas, kindling awareness, and fostering activism.
Currently, IFP represent a network of 10,000 filmmakers in New York City and around the world. Through its workshops, seminars, conferences, mentorships, and Filmmaker Magazine, IFP schools its members in the art, technology, and business of independent filmmaking (there are special programs to promote racial, ethnic, religious, ideological, gender, and sexual diversity). IFP builds audiences by hosting screenings, often in collaboration with other cultural institutions and also bestows the Gotham Independent Film Awards™, the first honors of the film awards season. When all is said and done, IFP fosters the development of 350 feature and documentary films each year. www.ifp.org
About the Gotham Independent Film Awards™
The Gotham Independent Film Awards, selected by distinguished juries and presented in New York City, the home of independent film, are the first honors of the film awards season. This public showcase honors the filmmaking community, expands the audience for independent films, and supports the work that IFP does behind the scenes throughout the year to bring such films to fruition. For info: http://gotham.ifp.org

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon