Last year, two of the films nominated for Best Feature at the Gotham Independent Film Awards went on to earn Oscar Best Picture nominations — The Descendents and Tree of Life — and this year two films nominated for Best Feature are currently on my list to be nominated for Best Picture. Those two are Paul Thomas Anderson‘s The Master and Wes Anderson‘s Moonrise Kingdom, which are joined by Bernie, The Loneliest Planet and the buzzy Middle of Nowhere.
Bernie and Moonrise also find themselves nominated for Best Ensemble along with awards season heavyweight Silver Linings Playbook, while Beasts of the Southern Wild enjoys some Breakthrough attention with Benh Zeitlin nominated for Breakthrough Director and 8-year-old star Quvenzhané Wallis nominated for Breakthrough Actor.
The Gotham Awards ceremony will be held on Monday, November 26 and I have included the complete list of nominations for the 2012 Gotham Independent Film Awards below:
Best Feature
- Bernie (Millennium Entertainment)
- The Loneliest Planet (Sundance Selects)
- The Master (The Weinstein Company)
- Middle of Nowhere (AFFRM and Participant Media)
- Moonrise Kingdom (Focus Features)
Best Documentary
- Detropia (Loki Films)
- How to Survive a Plague (Sundance Selects)
- Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present (HBO Documentary Films and Music Box Films)
- Room 237 (IFC Midnight)
- The Waiting Room (International Film Circuit)
Best Ensemble Performance
- Bernie
Jack Black, Shirley MacLaine, Matthew McConaughey - Moonrise Kingdom
Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, Jared Gilman, Kara Hayward, Jason Schwartzman, Bob Balaban - Safety Not Guaranteed
Aubrey Plaza, Mark Duplass, Jake Johnson, Karan Soni, Jenica Bergere, Kristen Bell, Jeff Garlin, Mary Lynn Rajskub - Silver Linings Playbook
Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver, Chris Tucker, Anupam Kher - Your Sister’s Sister
Emily Blunt, Rosemarie Dewitt, Mark Duplass
Breakthrough Director
- Zal Batmanglij for Sound of My Voice (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
- Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky for Francine (Factory 25 and The Film Sales Company)
- Jason Cortlund and Julia Halperin for Now, Forager (Argot Pictures)
- Antonio Méndez Esparza for Aquà y Allá (Here and There) (Torch Films)
- Benh Zeitlin for Beasts of the Southern Wild (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Breakthrough Actor
- Mike Birbiglia in Sleepwalk with Me (IFC Films)
- Emayatzy Corinealdi in Middle of Nowhere (AFFRM and Participant Media)
- Thure Lindhardt in Keep the Lights On (Music Box Films)
- Melanie Lynskey in Hello, I Must Be Going (Oscilloscope Laboratories)
- Quvenzhané Wallis in Beasts of the Southern Wild (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You
- Kid-Thing (dir. David Zellner)
- An Oversimplification of Her Beauty (dir. Terence Nance)
- Red Flag (dir. Alex Karpovsky)
- Sun Don’t Shine (dir. Amy Seimetz)
- Tiger Tail in Blue (dir. Frank V. Ross)
