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ELVIS MITCHELL TO HOST LIVE WEBCAST OF IFP’S 20TH ANNIVERSAY GOTHAM INDEPENDENT FILM AWARDS™ NOMINATIONS

Posted Friday, October 15th, 2010 - Comments Off on ELVIS MITCHELL TO HOST LIVE WEBCAST OF IFP’S 20TH ANNIVERSAY GOTHAM INDEPENDENT FILM AWARDS™ NOMINATIONS
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New York, NY (October 15, 2010) – The Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP), the nation’s oldest and largest organization of independent filmmakers announced today that Elvis Mitchell will host a live webcast to reveal the nominees for the 20th Anniversary Gotham Independent Film Awards™ on Monday, October 18th.

Signaling the official kick-off to the film awards season, the Gotham Independent Film Awards™ nominations will be announced at 1 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. / PT to a global audience on UStream TV at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/gotham-independent-film-awards-2010.  There will also be a link from IFP’s website.  Mitchell, currently host of the public radio show The Treatment, as well as the newly crowned co-host of the revamped TV series Roger Ebert Presents At The Movies, set to air on PBS in January 2011, will announce the Gotham Award nominations in six competitive awards categories including Best Feature, Best Documentary,  the Alfred Dunhill Breakthrough Director and  Breakthrough Actor Awards, Best Ensemble Performance and the Royal Bank of Canada, Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You Award.   The Festival Genius Audience Award nominees will be announced early November.

“As a New Yorker, I’m thrilled to be part of an event that’s so important to the independent film world,” said Mitchell.

“We are very excited to announce this year’s 20th Anniversary Gotham Awards nominees live and streaming on line,” said Joana Vicente, executive director of IFP. “Elvis is a highly regarded film critic whose decades of reviews have cemented him as a formidable presence in the film world.”

IFP’s 20th Anniversary Gotham Independent Film Awards™ ceremony will be held on Monday, November 29th at Cipriani Wall Street.  In addition to the competitive awards, actors Robert Duvall and Hilary Swank, director Darren Aronofsky and Focus Features’ CEO, James Schamus will each be presented with a career tribute.

As the first major awards 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 THE HURT LOCKER (2009), FOOD, INC (2009), FROZEN RIVER (2008), TROUBLE THE WATER (2008), INTO THE WILD (2007), SICKO (2007), HALF NELSON (2006) and CAPOTE (2005). 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; THE HURT LOCKER (2009); Breakthrough Actors, Melissa Leo (2008), Ellen Page (2007), Rinko Kikuchi (2006) and Amy Adams (2005).

The Premier sponsors of the 2010 Gotham Independent Film Awards™ are The New York Times and The Royal Bank of Canada. RBC is also the sponsor of the Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You award.   IFP welcomes new presenting sponsor of the Actress Tribute award, euphoria Calvin Klein and presenting sponsor, Fox Searchlight; returning sponsor Focus Features, Official Spirit, Russian Standard Vodka, Official Hotel, Andaz  and preferred sponsor of the Breakthrough Director and Breakthrough Actor Awards, Alfred Dunhill.  The Gotham Awards will be promoted nationally in an eight-page special advertising section in The New York Times on Friday, November 19th, 2010.

About Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP)

The Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP) is the nation’s oldest and largest not-for-profit advocacy organization for independent filmmakers.  Since its debut at the 1979 New York Film Festival, IFP has supported the production of over 7,000 films and offered resources to more than 20,000 filmmakers, providing an opportunity for many diverse voices to be heard. IFP believes that independent films enrich the universal language of cinema, seeding the global culture with new ideas, kindling awareness, and fostering activism. The organization has championed early work by pioneering, independent filmmakers, including Charles Burnett, Edward Burns, Jim Jarmusch, Barbara Kopple, Michael Moore, Mira Nair and Kevin Smith.

IFP represents 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.  The year-round program includes an Independent Film Week, The Gotham Awards, Filmmaking Labs and Seminars, and a range of programs to promote racial, ethnic, religious, ideological, gender and sexual diversity. IFP, often in collaboration with other cultural institutions, builds audiences by hosting premieres and special screenings.  The IFP fosters the development of 300 feature and documentary films each year. Recently, the organization licensed the popular Festival Genius software platform through which IFP now reaches over 200,000 film fans worldwide.

For more information: 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 more information: 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