29th Annual IFP Gotham Awards Winners

Last night, December 2nd, the Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP) announced the winners of the current edition of the annual Gotham Awards at a ceremony held at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City.

The awards ceremony had a live stream and today, December 3rd, there is a taped version still available which its included at the end of this post.

The big winner of the night is a movie I'm looking forward to watch soon, very soon, as in a few days will be available on Netflix, Marriage Story.  Me, sincerely wish ALL great films could be available in any of the streaming services as where I live know there are not many cinemas and the few show mainly commercial movies.   By-the-way I'm not a Scorsese fan, his Leonardo Dicaprio movies are insufferable, his Daniel Day-Lewis films more watchable; so, no surprise to say that find The Irishman more on the insufferable side of the scale and yes, a bit boring (but not because length as have seen even longer but great movies).  What killed the movie for me were the special effects as faces absolutely lost their expressions and looked like any expressionless character in those cartoonish popular movies. Sigh.

So, going back to the Gotham, yes Marriage Story won all four awards it was nominated for, Best Feature, Best Actor, Best Screenplay and the Audience Award. There is no doubt last night was big for Netflix as not only won Best Feature but also Best Documentary.  As known Renee Zellweger was not nominated in the Best Actress category, so there is no surprise she didn't collect this one.  As some pundits are speculating and tend to agree, this year critics, industry and audiences will go different ways; critics will go for great films while industry and audiences for more popular films - which is nothing new but all this translates into what Gotham Awards could tell us about honors in current awards season: not much.

Previously announced tribute awards went to actors Laura Dern and Sam Rockwell; director Ava DuVernay, and FilmNation CEO Glen Basner.  Additionally, Jason DaSilva received a Made in New York award.

Award Winners

Best Feature: Marriage Story, Noah Baumbach (Netflix)
Best Documentary: American Factory, Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert (Netflix)

Breakthrough Director Award: Laure De Clemont-Tonerre for The Mustang, France and Belgium

Best Actress: Awkwafina in The Farewell, Lulu Wang
Best Actor: Adam Driver in Marriage Story, Noah Baumbach (Netflix)
Breakthrough Actor: Taylor Russell in Waves, Trey Edward Shults

Best Screenplay: Noah Baumbach for Marriage Story, Noah Baumbach (Netflix)

Audience Award: Marriage Story, Noah Baumbach (Netflix)

TV Categories
Breakthrough Series - Long Format (over 40 minutes): When They See Us (Netflix)
Breakthrough Series - Short Format (under 40 minuest): PEN15 (Hulu)

Awards Ceremony