It starts earlier and earlier every year. Today, October 19th, the first film award nominations just came out – for the Gotham Independent Film Awards. These are given annually from the Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP) “the largest membership organization in the United States dedicated to independent film” and the awards were founded in 1991.
A group of people decide on the nominations and awards, limiting the scope to films that could be considered independent – big budget studio movies are ineligible. But independent film has landed in the race just about every single year now – previous to 2017 when The Shape of Water won, the last four years have been indie winners for Best Picture, for 12 Years a Slave (2013), Birdman (2014), Spotlight (2015) and Moonlight (2016).
Last year Call Me By Your Name and Get Out were nominated for both the Gotham and the Oscar. Also had correlation between for acting (Willem Dafoe, Daniel Kaluuya, Margot Robbie, Saoirse Ronan, Mary J. Blige, and Timothee Chalamet), screenwriting (The Big Sick, Call Me By Your Name, Get Out, Lady Bird) and directing (Greta Gerwig and Jordan Peele).
Without further ado, here are the 2019 nominations:
Continue reading “State of the Race: The Gotham Independent Film Nominations 2018”