"Winter's Bone" Leads Gotham Indie Film Awards
Award season is getting off to an early start with the announcement of nominees for the 20th annual Gotham Independent Film Awards.
Leading the race for awards celebrating a U.S.-born or -based indie filmmaker's unique vision is Debra Granik's drama "Winter's Bone," about a young woman trying to find her missing father in a threatening Missouri backcountry. It received nominations for Best Feature, Best Ensemble Performance, and Breakthrough Actor (Jennifer Lawrence).
Also nominated for Best Feature:
Darren Aronofsky's "Black Swan," starring Natalie Portman;
Derek Cianfrance's "Blue Valentine" (currently embroiled in a controversy over receiving an NC-17 rating from the MPAA);
Lisa Cholodenko's "The Kids Are All Right," starring Annette Bening and Julianne Moore as lesbian parents; and
"Let Me In," Matt Reeves' remake of the Swedish vampire thriller "Let the Right One In."
Nominations for Best Ensemble Performance were given the casts of:
"The Kids Are All Right" (Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Mia Wasikowska and Josh Hutcherson);
"Life During Wartime" (Shirley Henderson, Ciarán Hinds, Allison Janney, Michael Lerner, Chris Marquette, Rich Pecci, Charlotte Rampling, Paul Reubens, Ally Sheedy, Dylan Riley Snyder, Renée Taylor and Michael Kenneth Williams);
"Please Give" (Catherine Keener, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Rebecca Hall, Ann Guilbert, Lois Smith, Sarah Steele and Thomas Ian Nicholas);
"Tiny Furniture" (Lena Dunham, Laurie Simmons, Grace Dunham, Rachel Howe, Merritt Wever, Amy Seimetz, Alex Karpovsky, David Call, Jemima Kirke, Sarah Sophie Flicker, Garland Hunter and Isen Hunter); and
"Winter's Bone" (Jennifer Lawrence, John Hawkes, Dale Dickey, Lauren Sweetser, Garret Dillahunt and Kevin Breznahan).
Nominees in the category of Breakthrough Director (for their first fiction feature) are:
John Wells, "The Company Men";
Kevin Asch, "Holy Rollers";
Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, "I Love You Phillip Morris";
Tanya Hamilton, "Night Catches Us"; and
Lena Dunham, "Tiny Furniture."
Breakthrough Actor nominees, for outstanding debut or "breakthrough" performance, are:
Prince Adu, "Prince of Broadway";
Ronald Bronstein, "Daddy Longlegs";
Greta Gerwig, "Greenberg";
Jennifer Lawrence, "Winter's Bone"; and
John Ortiz, "Jack Goes Boating."
Best Documentary Nominees are:
"12th & Delaware" by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (HBO);
"Inside Job" by Charles Ferguson (Sony Pictures Classics);
"The Oath" by Laura Poitras (Zeitgeist Films and American Documentary/POV);
"Public Speaking" by Martin Scorsese (HBO); and
"Sweetgrass" by Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Ilisa Barbash (Cinema Guild).
To be eligible, films must be scheduled for a theatrical or digital platform or Pay TV release during calendar year 2010.
An exception is the category Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You, for features which have received acclaimed on the festival circuit but still have not obtained distribution. This year's nominees are:
"Kati with an i" - Robert Greene, director; Douglas Tirola, Susan Bedusa, producers
"Littlerock" - Mike Ott, director; Frederick Thornton, Laura Ragsdale, Sierra Leoni, producers
"On Coal River" - Francine Cavanaugh and Adams Wood, directors; Jillian Elizabeth, Adams Wood, Francine Cavanaugh, producers
"Summer Pasture" - Lynn True and Nelson Walker, directors/producers; Tsering Perlo, co-director/co-producer
"The Wolf Knife" - Laurel Nakadate, director/producer
The awards will be presented Nov. 29 at Cipriani Wall Steet in New York City.