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Source: The Hollywood Reporter
What most people know as award season may not technically start offering its biggest prizes until around the start of the new year, but that isn’t stopping some organizations from already going ahead and handing out their own accolades. One such event is the Gotham Independent Film Awards (or simply Gotham Awards), the most recent of which took place on Monday, November 28th. Held this year at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City and arranged by the Gotham Film and Media Institute, a nonprofit group dedicated to independent film and located primarily within New York City (with branches extending to Seattle, Minneapolis, and other metropolitan areas in the United States), the Gotham Awards are presented annually to that year’s handful of independently produced cinema and those who have contributed to its making, having honored such individuals since the inaugural ceremony in 1991. In the more than three decades since, several acclaimed works of independent cinema have been acknowledged and appreciated by the organization holding the event, and it was only just recently that another handful of exceptional cinematic fare has been recognized.
Kicking off what could very well be an ongoing streak of Best Picture (or an association’s equivalent thereof) wins throughout the upcoming awards season is A24’s sleeper hit “Everything Everywhere All at Once”, an absurdist comedy-drama that has already proven to be a much greater success than even the most optimistic predictions had anticipated when it was first released to theaters. It’s been several months since the film’s limited premiere in April of this year, yet there have yet to be any signs of it slowing down any time soon. The Gotham Awards, in fact, have only increased the attention given to “Everything Everywhere All at Once”, as it was this film that the Gotham Film and Media Institute has chosen to honor with its most prestigious prize, the award for Best Feature (while also naming one of its actors, Ke Huy Quan, with the award for Outstanding Supporting Performance). Directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheiner, as well as fellow producers Joe Russo, Anthony Russo, Mike Larocca and Jonathan Wang were all named in the announcement of the film’s win, with Kwan taking to the stage to express the gratitude he and his collaborators have for this highest honor. “Right now if we’re going to endure the next 20, 30, 40, 50 years together, we’re going to have to heal that trauma collectively,” Kwan stated in his acceptance speech, alluding to one of the film’s core themes and how said themes have resonated deeply with much of its viewing audience. “We’re going to have to figure out how to open up the collective imagination and we’re going to have to figure out how to all be whole, emotionally talented, kind, resilient people.”
Before the ceremony had officially started, it was Focus Features’ “Tár” that was seen as the most prominent frontrunner, receiving five Gotham Award nominations going into the event. While it could not overcome the competition provided by “Everything Everywhere All at Once”, it did not go home empty handed either, with writer/director Todd Field taking home the prize for Best Screenplay. The runner-up in terms of overall nominations, another A24 film titled “Aftersun”, also managed to get through the event with a single award, as director Charlotte Wells was given the Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director Award, a prize dedicated entirely to those making their feature directorial debuts. When it came time to present the acting prizes, Danielle Deadwyler was named the recipient of the Outstanding Leading Performance award for her portrayal of Mamie Till-Mobley in Orion Pictures’ biographical drama “Till”, while Gracija Filipovic was honored with the Breakthrough Performer award in recognition of her performance as Julija in the Kino Lorber distributed “Murina”. “All That Breathes”, meanwhile, was named as this year’s winner of the Best Documentary Feature award, while the French drama-thriller “Happening” took the prize for Best International Feature.
Competitive awards weren’t the only honors presented at this year’s Gotham Awards though, as there were also a decent number of special tributes being featured throughout the night’s event. Among the recipients of said tributes were actress Gina Prince-Bythewood, Focus Features executives Peter Kujawski and Jason Cassidy, and actress Michelle Williams, the latter of whom was given her award by Paul Dano, her costar in the recently released Steven Spielberg drama “The Fabelmans” (filling in for Spielberg, who was originally scheduled to give the award but had to step down after contracting COVID). The most poignant tribute, however, was that for the late Sidney Poitier, who passed away earlier this year and left behind an incomporable cinematic legacy. It was during this tribute that presenter Jonathan Majors announced that the Gotham Sidney Poitier Initiative had been launched, which Majors referred to as “an ambitious set of programs that aim to expand on Poitier’s legacy to support the next generation of filmmakers, through the pillars of mentorship, scholarship, project funding and career advancement”.
Easily the most amusing tribute of the night was that for Adam Sandler, presented by brothers Joshua and Benjamin Safdie, whose 2019 film “Uncut Gems” featured Sandler in the lead role. The Safdies spoke out about how Sandler’s comedic work had been a major inspiration for them growing up and jokingly claimed that the actor could go “toe-to-toe with Daniel Day-Lewis and Jerry Lewis”. It wasn’t until Sandler took the stage to accept his award when the most humorous moments of the ceremony began to take place; after recalling the times he had met Poitier and thought of him as “the nicest and funniest guy” (Sandler’s tribute had immediately followed Poitier’s), Sandler then delivered a speech allegedly written by his daughters. Said speech made note of how the girls would’ve liked to have been at the ceremony with their father, but had to stay home so that, as Sandler explained, they wouldn’t “spend the whole night looking for Timothée Chalamet”. While a less-than-serious jab at Ben Stiller films followed shortly afterwards (Sandler claimed that his daughters “were doing everything they can’t do when he’s at home, including “laugh[ing] out loud at Ben Stiller movies”), it didn’t deter from the sheer love for his career and his family that Sandler had conveyed in his speech, the kind of passion that could be seen throughout the entirety of this year’s Gotham Awards.
