Showing posts with label Gotham Awards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gotham Awards. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Thee Awards Season, Again

It is that time of year once more, autumn leaves, pumpkins, turkeys, silver bells, Santa and red carpets. As a dedicated independent filmmaker, who can only deal with Hollywood in the 4th quarter when $100 million dollar film productions are set aside to unroll the $100 million marketing and PR campaigns as Hollywoodteurs unleash their best and most thoughtful film fare with dreams of Oscar gold on their minds, ostensibly ushering in Thee Awards Season. It is a very special time of year where celebriots seek vindication after a year of bombastic cinemaplex distraction.

This year, 2016, showed promise for the likes of 'The Birth of a Nation,' however, in a bit of irony, as the nation elected its first outright racist, homophobic, xenophobic, misogynist, and so many of anti-human behavior traits, US President, a long overdue cinematic unfolding of the true story of American hero, Nat Turner, a man seeking full ownership of his body and person, the film was marred in reckless scandal, while the most unpopular 60,000,000+ Americans elected a completely unqualified verbal brut to the highest office in our land and the world.

Of course, there are no guarantees in the Oscar votership of Hollywood nor with the attitudes or behavior of the American public; however, unpredictability seems always to be omnipresent throughout the land. While films like 'Moonlight,' 'Loving,' 'Fences,' 'Manchester by the Sea,' 'La La Land' and 'Lion,' are certain to make Hollywood feel great again with nuanced, if familiar, storytelling and narratives, the red carpet and epic award season is the ultimate Hollywood escape.  

Thursday, October 20, 2016

Once upon a filmmaking, there was a time in the not so distant past, where I eagerly awaited Filmmaker Magazine's 25 New Faces of Film, Sundance Film Festival Audience Winners, Festival de Cannes Official Selections, and the IFC Gotham Independent Film Awards.

This morning, the 2016 Gotham Awards nominees were announced. For many insiders, journalists, filmmakers and Academy voting members, today signals the advent of awards season and the red carpet parade. Each year the list of names, production companies and distributors become more recognizable and achingly familiar, leading to the inquiry: Where is the independence? What is independent film?

While posing the rhetorical threat, I will offer some of this year's roster of nominations: Paramount Pictures, Amazon Studios, Roadside Attractions, Fox Searchlight Pictures, Sony Pictures Classics, Annette Benning, Natalie Portman and Jeff Bridges. There is nothing particularly independent about said nomenclature and as a producer of independent film, the evolution from indie to Hollywood is to change or evolve the studio system from a closed narrative to an inclusive movie production arena where all stories are told. It is also to emerge from meager budgeted innovative cinema production to fully secured productions capable of being articulated to larger audiences.

With that said, I congratulate the 2016 Gotham Awards nominees, and look forward to not fully knowing any of the winners.