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In the inaugural year of his mandate, Directors’ Fortnight (aka Quinzaine des cinéastes) Artistic Director Julien Rejl could point to Caméra d’Or Award winning Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell as his north star for his curation vision. While some critics noted a sense of status quo continuity in year two, he nonetheless curated a noteworthy handful of titles such as À son image, The Other Way Around, To a Land Unknown, Une langue universelle and the international premiere to Good One. As we look ahead, we envision Rejl once again tussling with programmer Christian Jeune (Un Certain Regard) to secure some high-profile auteur titles and hidden gems debuts or sophomore films—to round out the selection of just under two dozen feature films.…...

Mikey Madison as Ani and Mark Eydelshteyn as Ivan in ‘Anora’ (Courtesy of Neon)

Anora continues to pick up speed heading into the Oscars, scoring Critics Choice Awards and DGA wins and snagging a Best Feature win at the Film Independent Spirit Awards. Anora also captured Best Director (Sean Baker) and Best Lead Performance (Mikey Madison) wins. A Real Pain and Didi each earned two awards during the February 22, 2025 Spirit Awards ceremony hosted by Aidy Bryant.

On the television side, Baby Reindeer dominated with three wins. The critically acclaimed limited series took home the Best Lead Performance (Richard Gadd), Best Supporting Performance (Nava Mau), and Best Breakthrough Performance (Jessica Gunning) wins. Other television winners included Shogun and How to Die Alone.

2025 Film Independent Spirit Awards Nominees and Winners

Best Feature

Winner: Anora

Producers: Sean Baker, Alex Coco, Samantha Quan

I Saw the TV Glow

Producers: Ali Herting, Sam Intili, Dave McCary,...

Film Independent handed out its 2025 Spirit Awards on Saturday afternoon (February 22), in a Santa Monica ceremony that saw Anora claim three prizes for best feature, director Sean Baker, and lead performance Mikey Madison in the gender-neutral category.

Sean Wang’s Didi took two prizes for best first feature and first screenplay, whileGints Zilbalodis’s Latvian animation Flow won international film and No Other Land was named best documentary. A Real Pain also nabbed two awards for screenplay and supporting actor Kieran Culkin.

While it is too late for the Spirit Awards to have any bearing on the Oscars next weekend...

The 2025 Film Independent Spirit Awards have wrapped! And now we know, as the full winners list for the Spirit Awards has been revealed, just how much momentum “Anora” has going into the Oscars: a lot. It already got the most Spirits nominations with six, and it ended up winning Best Feature, Best Director for Sean Baker, and Best Lead Performance for Mikey Madison.

Kieran Culkin won Best Supporting Performance for “A Real Pain,” which also won Best Screenplay. “No Other Land” won Best Documentary, and the extraordinary animated film “Flow” won Best International feature.

“Baby Reindeer” collected the most prizes on the TV side with Best Lead Performance in a New Scripted Series going to Richard Gadd, Jessica Gunning won Best Breakthrough Performance in a New Scripted Series, and Best Supporting Performance in a New Scripted Series went to Nava Rau. “Shogun” won Best New Scripted Series.

Host Aidy Bryant...

The 40th annual Independent Spirit Awards took place in Santa Monica on Feb. 22, with Aidy Bryant as host for the second year in a row.

“Anora” was the biggest winner of the day, being named best feature while Sean Baker and Mikey Madison took home individual trophies for best director and lead performance. “Baby Reindeer” also won big, with Richard Gadd, Nava Mau and Jessica Gunning clinching the awards for lead, supporting and breakthrough performance, though “Shogun” won best new scripted series. And Sean Wang’s “Dìdi” clinched both awards in the debut film category: best first feature as well as best first first screenplay.

See the full list of winners below.

Best Feature

“Anora” (Winner)

“I Saw the TV Glow”

“Nickel Boys”

“Sing Sing”

“The Substance”

Best First Feature

“Dìdi” (Winner)

“In the Summers”

“Janet Planet”

“The Piano Lesson”

“Problemista”

John Cassavetes Award – Given to the best feature made...

Film Independent handed out its 2025 Spirit Awards on Saturday afternoon (February 22), in a Santa Monica ceremony that saw Anora claim three prizes for best feature, director Sean Baker, and lead actor Mikey Madison in the gender-neutral category.

Sean Wang’s Didi took two prizes for best first feature and first screenplay, while Gints Zilbalodis’s Latvian animation Flow won international film and No Other Land was named best documentary. A Real Pain also nabbed two awards for screenplay and supporting actor Kieran Culkin.

Baker gave an impassioned speech calling for higher upfront fees for independent directors who he said take...

A cinema of ordinary life is also a cinema of culture.

A warmly lit frame of an extended rural family attunes us to their chatter after a modest night meal. Mothers run after their children; one of them is developmentally disabled, but in a rural Chinese village circa 1991 he is treated as a laughing stock. Men in their thirties scold teenage boys for jumping on a modern truck, forgetting that before they were farmers, they too ran through fields after automobiles that passed through a village where the plough and oxen are your daily temple. A wise-cracking elder smokes a cigarette while confiding to a relative how she has never beyond a certain ominous Iron Bottom Lake. She might remember the transience of childhood, even if she may have chosen to forget the book of pains that mark younger womanhood in a state that surveils and overwrites bodies.

Amidst this chaotic ensemble,...

French sales outfit Loco Films has acquired international rights to “Tiger’s Pond” (Vagachipani), the latest film championed by celebrated Indian auteur Anurag Kashyap. The dark crime drama, directed by emerging filmmaker Natesh Hegde, is set to make its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival’s Forum strand.

Kashyap, whose producing credits include festival favorites like “The Lunchbox,” backs the project alongside Singapore-based producer Jeremy Chua (Cannes winner “Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell”) and producer Ranjan Singh (Cannes selection “Kennedy”). The film charts the collision course between a feudal businessman attempting to manipulate local elections and a defiant outcast villager, promising “rapturous textures and treacherous depths” in its exploration of rural power dynamics.

The cast includes Dileesh Pothan, Achyut Kumar, Natesh Hegde, Gopal Hegde and Sumitra.

Hegde’s “Pedro” was in the New Currents competition at the Busan International Film Festival in 2021 and “Tiger’s Pond” participated in the...

Illustrations by Stephanie Lane Gage.When making my sound work, I always try to bend the material in front of me to find alternative possibilities of context or (re)context. Here, I was drawn to so many personal favorites, moods, and textures that these 70-odd minutes are more akin to a year-end work of catharsis. The result is as much a personal mix as a 2024 roundup.This was aided by a number of films with great music supervision, particularly four heavy hitters: Love Lies Bleeding (all films 2024), Civil War, Dahomey, and Janet Planet. Artists like Throbbing Gristle, Anna Domino, Silver Apples, Suicide, Dean Blunt, and Laurie Anderson offered a huge prop of character within these films. They could set each film in a specific time and place, or, in the case of Civil War, give a punk, psychedelic energy to a near-future world.Staying through the end credits is important...

At its annual Spirit Awards Nominee Brunch on Saturday, Film Independent honored three up-and-coming directors. The event held to honor the late head of the group, Josh Welsh, was both sad and happy.

Brenda Robinson, chair of the Film Independent board, opened the event by speaking from the heart. She got everyone to stand up and honor Welsh, who died on December 31 after a five-year fight with colon cancer.

Robinson told the audience, which included entertainment industry stars like Mikey Madison and Mark Eidelstein from “Anora,” Demi Moore from “The Substance,” and filmmaker RaMell Ross, whose film “Nickel Boys” was recently praised by the National Society of Film Critics.

Robinson thanked the community, saying, “I’m so thankful to be surrounded by such a beautiful group of people, our wonderful staff, leadership, and board.” “I want to lift Josh,” she said, inviting everyone to celebrate Welsh’s life. I’d like to praise him.

Film Independent announced the winners of its three Emerging Filmmaker Awards at its annual Spirit Awards Nominee Brunch on Saturday. Winners for the remaining categories are set to be announced on Feb. 22.

Opening remarks were delivered by Brenda Robinson, chair of the board at Film Independent, who remembered the organization’s late president Josh Welsh during her speech.

Welsh died on Dec. 31 after a five-year battle with colon cancer.

Robinson said, “We’re handing out a lot of free hugs this week.” She went on to say, “We’re in quite a moment today, and I’m so grateful to be surrounded by such a beautiful group of people, our wonderful staff and leadership and board. This has been a week of introspection for me and so many of us.”

“Anora” stars Mikey Madison and Mark Eidelstein, “The Substance” star Demi Moore, RaMell Ross whose film “Nickel Boys” was named...

The Film Independent Spirit Awards have given three $25,000 cash grants to emerging filmmakers Sarah Winshall, Rachel Elizabeth Seed and Sarah Friedland at its annual Film Independent Spirit Awards Nominees Brunch, which took place on Saturday at Casa Del Mara in Santa Monica. Karen Pittman hosted.

Nominations in the three categories, the only Indie Spirit Award categories that offer cash prizes rather than trophies, were announced with the rest of the Indie Spirit nominations on Dec. 5, but the winners are revealed in advance of the Feb. 25 ceremony.

Winshall received the Producers Award, which is given to an emerging producer working with limited resources. Friedland was given the Someone to Watch Award, which salutes “a talented filmmaker of singular vision who has not yet received appropriate recognition.” And Seed received the Truer Than Fiction Award, which goes to an emerging director of nonfiction features.

The annual Nominees Brunch is typically a festive...

2024 was an exceptionally strong year for cinematography, with several standout films that represent the art form at its apex. Perhaps what’s most welcome about these films is their variety, not only in terms of genre and tone but also budget and position in the marketplace. From the studio system, we have Greig Fraser’s extraordinary work on “Dune: Part Two,” which doubles down on the ambition and tactile detail of Fraser’s work on its predecessor (for which he justly received an Academy Award) to create one of the most flat-out beautiful epics since the glory days of David Lean. From the world of low-budget, independent filmmaking, we have “I Saw the TV Glow,” where cinematographer Eric Yue designs a meticulous and expressive visual corollary for his protagonist’s inner state. Like Fraser, cinematographer Lawrence Sher brings more innovation to his approach to a sequel — in Sher’s case,...

Christoph Thoke’s Mogador Film, Sebastian Popp’s Stoked Film (both Germany) and Jeremy Chua’s Potocol (Singapore) have joined forces to back “The Clouds Woke No Clocks,” a refugee drama from Indian filmmaker Aniket Dutta. The project will be led by Indian producer Roshni Sen and Dutta’s Empty Video banner.

Acclaimed Bangladesh actors Mostafa Monwar and Deepanwita Martin (Busan title “No Ground Beneath the Feet”) are set to star in the film, which follows a displaced family settling in a makeshift camp in the Himalayan foothills. The story centers on parents Khalid and Sharmeen, and their eight-year-old son Shoaib, who relocate to India to escape persecution in their home country.

“For me the state of being is more important than the state of being a refugee,” says Dutta, whose debut feature “Ghost of the Golden Groves,” co-directed with Sen, played at Festival du Nouveau Cinema Montreal. “I’m...

Việt and Nam.The fate of modern Vietnam is inseparable from the image. The war was the first large-scale conflict in human history to be captured on film and disseminated in real time. And yet, in cinema, hegemonic representations in the mold of Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter (1978) or Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979) have engendered a collective derealization in the Western imagination, where Vietnam frequently exists first as a stage for contemporary moral theater and only secondarily as a sovereign nation in its own right; its people are rendered as props, mere shooting targets, denied even a semblance of the on-screen interiority afforded to their foreign counterparts.In the last decade, a growing number of Vietnamese filmmakers have begun asserting agency over how narratives about the country and the lives of its people get told. The recently expanded focus of European filmmaking labs to foster talent explicitly from historically underrepresented regions,...

This week’s episode of IndieWire’s “Screen Talk” podcast, co-hosted by Anne Thompson and Ryan Lattanzio, is a fun one. We start the episode off with a rundown review of all the firehose of awards nominees, events, winners, and distractions that came this week — from the Gotham Awards live in New York on Monday to nominations from the Film Independent Spirit Awards and National Board of Review and the winners out of the elite New York Film Critics Circle. Oh, there were also the Gotham Awards on Monday in New York, where “A Different Man” surprisingly won Best Feature over predicted pick “Anora.” Meanwhile, IndieWire hosted our own Honors event Thursday night in Los Angeles, but for context, we recorded this podcast before those were highlighted.

But as a more refreshing rejoinder to the awards talks we regularly hold on this podcast, Kino Lorber CEO and chairman Richard Lorber...

The following article is an excerpt from the new edition of “In Review by David Ehrlich,” a biweekly newsletter in which our Chief Film Critic and Head Reviews Editor rounds up the site’s latest reviews and muses about current events in the movie world. Subscribe here to receive the newsletter in your inbox every other Friday.

This week, IndieWire published our list of the 25 best films of the year, and once again it was objectively correct, obviously infallible, and universally celebrated by our readers. I joke, I joke, but the Twitter pushback did seem to be much lighter than usual. Maybe the conversation has just shifted over to Reddit and Bluesky, or maybe @LisanAlGaib69 has simply come to accept that a zany Jewish comedy about Jason Schwartzman falling in love with Carol Kane might be a superior achievement to “Dune: Part 2.”

Anyway, if the fear was that the...

Cannes Critics’ Week has picked the projects that will be part of the 11th edition of Next Step, a programme aimed at helping filmmakers whose short films played at Critics’ Week develop their feature debut.

Since its creation 11 years ago, Next Step has accompanied the development of 96 feature projects, with 39 already completed. Recent Next Step alumni that stood out in the festival circuit include Molly Manning Walker with “How to Have Sex;” Chilean director Felipe Gálvez with “The Settlers;” Valentina Maurel with Locarno winner “I Have Electric Dreams;” as well as Matthew Rankin with Universal Language” which won Directors’ Fortnight Audience Award and represents Canada in the Oscar race.

In 2025, seven new features developed at Next Step are expected to roll out at major festivals, notably Morad Mostafa’s “Aisha Can’t Fly Away Anymore” which won Venice’s industry prize, Final Cut, for a film in post production. Next...

This morning saw the announcements of the 40th edition of the Film Independent Spirit Awards. The big picture nominees include titles like the film festival darling The Substance, as well as Anora, which is getting high accolades for Mikey Madison‘s performance and Sean Baker’s writing and direction. A24 would naturally snag a ton of nominations that total a whopping 19. This beats last year’s 11-nomination count.

The Independent Spirit Awards will be taking place on Saturday, February 22, 2025, and is set to be held at Santa Monica beach. Former Saturday Night Live cast member Aidy Bryant will return as the host. The in-person ceremony will be available to stream live on IMDb and Film Independent YouTube channels, and across other social platforms. You can find the full list of nominations, courtesy of Deadline, below.

Best Feature (Award given to the producer)

Anora

Producers: Sean Baker, Alex Coco, Samantha Quan...

Sean Baker’s Anora and Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw The TV Glow lead the 2025 Independent Spirit Award nominations with six each.

Both films were nominated in best feature, best director, best lead performance, best supporting performance and the producers award while I Saw The TV Glow also picked up best screenplay.

Sean Wang’s Didilanded four nominations including best first feature and best first screenplay. The Apprentice is up for three awards – best directing, best editing and best lead performance for Sebastian Stan.

The winners will be announced at a ceremony in Santa Monica on February 22, 2025.

Earlier this week...

Wow… has it really been 40 years? It sure has, and that’s a reason to celebrate! From our first year at a restaurant on La Cienega Blvd. to a worldwide live stream, the Film Independent Spirit Awards have grown a lot.

That first year the awards, then called the Findie (Friends of Independents) Awards, awarded both Marty & Joel Coen the Best Director prize. Since then, we’ve celebrated artists like Spike Lee, Ryan Coogler, Whit Stillman, Robert Rodriguez and Kasi Lemmons, among many, many others. Next month on the blog, we’ll take deep dive into all the history of the awards, so make sure to check back with us to read all about the last 40 years of the Spirit Awards!

This year, we’re headed back to the beach in Santa Monica with returning host and Saturday Night Live alum Aidy Bryant. The show, which will be held at the beach in Santa Monica,...

Nominations have been revealed for the 2025 Film Independent Spirit Awards, which will take place in Los Angeles on February 22. The film nominations were led by “Anora” and “I Saw the TV Glow” with six each. In the television categories, “Shōgun” garnered the most nominations with five, followed closely by “Baby Reindeer” and “English Teacher” with four apiece. Watch the announcement here and see the full list below.

Julio Torres did well here with four nominations across his feature directorial debut “Problemista” and Max series “Fantasmas.” Indies like “Dídi,” “Janet Planet,” “Sing Sing,” “Ghostlight,” “The People’s Joker,” “In the Summers,” “The Substance,” and “Nickel Boys” also had a good day, racking up multiple nominations across the board. Netflix enjoys multiple nods, for “The Piano Lesson” and “His Three Daughters,” two movies poised to enter into the Oscar race.

The 2024 Spirit Award winners were led by “Past Lives,” “The Holdovers,” and “American Fiction,...

The first major awards show of the season has spoken, and the future looks bright for A24 as A Different Man took best feature and Sing Sing top acting honours for Colman Domingo and Clarence Maclin at the 34th Gotham Awards on Monday night.

Cannes Palme d’Or winner Anora, which began the night at Cipriani Wall Street in New York with the most nominations on four, went home empty-handed. However Sean Baker’s madcap romantic comedy is expected to figure prominently as awards season continues.

Aaron Schimberg’s dark comedy A Different Man premiered in Sundance and stars Sebastian Stan...

“A Different Man” was named the best independent film of the year at the 2024 Gotham Awards, which took place on Monday night in New York City.

The win for the drama starring Sebastian Stan came as a surprise at the end of a show in which “Nickel Boys” and “Sing Sing” had been the big winners, and in which “Anora” came in with the most nominations but left empty-handed.

In the gender-neutral acting categories, Colman Domingo and Clarence Maclin won the lead and supporting awards for “Sing Sing.” Domingo’s category also included Pamela Anderson for “The Last Showgirl,” Nicole Kidman for “Babygirl,” Marianne Jean-Baptiste for “Hard Truths” and Mikey Madison for “Anora,” while Maclin’s included Yura Borisov for “Anora,” Guy Pearce for “The Brutalist,” Kieran Culkin for “A Real Pain” and Danielle Deadwyler for “Nickel Boys.”

“Nickel Boys” star Brandon Wilson won the award for breakthrough actor, while that film’s director,...

A24’s “A Different Man” won best feature at the 2024 Gotham Awards Monday night at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City.

Meanwhile, “Sing Sing” swept the acting categories, with Colman Domingo winning for best lead performance and Clarence Maclin for best supporting performance.

Each category for nominations is decided by a different jury of critics, journalists and other industry professionals, and screening links must be provided to all its jury members. An entirely different group determines the winners. That’s in contrast with the Oscars or the BAFTAs, which are determined by actors, filmmakers and other artists who are in the entertainment industry.

In addition to the nominees, the Gothams bestowed special tributes to some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, including Oscar winner Angelina Jolie (Performer Tribute) for “Maria,” Emmy winner Zendaya (Spotlight Tribute) for “Challengers,” Timothée Chalamet and James Mangold (Visionary Tribute) for “A Complete Unknown,” and the...

When the 34th annual Gotham Awards took place in Cipriani Wall Street in New York City on Monday, December 2, the Oscar race officially began. The Gothams traditionally occupy a spot on the awards calendar as the first major film-centric ceremony of the season, giving fans their first opportunity to see the year’s biggest stars on the red carpet. The event also marks awards watchers’ first chance to gauge the state of the race.

The night’s top prize went to “A Different Man,” Aaron Schimberg’s A24 body transformation comedy that premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. The film, which stars Sebastian Stan as a facially disfigured actor who undergoes an experimental surgery to boost his career, beat out Oscar frontrunners such as Sean Baker’s “Anora” and Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers.” The win could boost the award chances of both Schimberg and his stars Stan and Adam Pearson.

The Gotham Awards, honoring the best in American independent films, held their 34th annual event on Monday night, Dec. 2, launching the fall and winter awards season. So who were the big winners? Scroll down for the complete list of 2024 Gotham Awards champs in all categories, updating live throughout the night.

Nominees were decided by panels of film critics, journalists, festival programmers, and film curators. The winners were then selected by juries of writers, directors, actors, producers, editors, and others directly involved in filmmaking. Those small juries change from year to year and from category to category, so these awards can produce surprising results.

Telling the story of a young sex worker from Brooklyn who meets and impulsively marries the son of a Russian oligarch, “Anora” led the nominations with four bids including Best Feature, as well Sean Baker for Best Director, actress Mikey Madison for Best Lead Performance and actor...

Tonight, New York City celebrated the finest in entertainment with the 2024 Gotham Awards. It’s the first step on the long road to the Oscars and finally giving awards watchers something to live for. Though the Gothams focus on independent movies, the Gotham Awards give us some sense of what...

Taiwan production house Aview Images has struck a partnership with Singapore’s Momo Film Co to co-produce two upcoming features – Nelson Yeo’s “The Drought” and Daniel Hui’s “Other People’s Dreams.”

“The Drought,” Yeo’s sophomore feature, explores family dynamics and personal struggles against the backdrop of an uninhabitable drought. The project marks a reunion between Yeo and Momo Film Co following his debut “Dreaming & Dying,” which won the Golden Leopard – Filmmaker of the Present and Best First Feature at Locarno 2023.

Hui’s “Other People’s Dreams” follows two individuals fleeing their pasts through Singapore, finding survival through theft while blending into the city’s nocturnal rhythm. The project won a co-production grant at the recently concluded QCinema Project Market, the industry platform of the Philippines‘ QCinema International Film Festival.

Momo boasts a diverse slate of films that also includes “At the Edge of the Sea,” the feature debut of Anh Le,...

‘Anora’, del director Sean Baker, encabeza las nominaciones. © Gotham| Universal Pictures | A24

Ya se conocen los nominados a los Gotham, unos galardones que premian lo mejor del cine independiente estadounidense y que dan el pistoletazo de salida oficial (como cada año) a la temporada de premios.

Este año, Anora, de Sean Baker – que, por cierto, acaba de estrenarse en cines españoles –, es la película con más nominaciones, con un total de cuatro. Muy de cerca le siguen Nickel Boys, de RaMell Ross, y I Saw the TV Glow, de Jane Schoenbrun, ambas con tres nominaciones cada una.

La 34 edición de los Premios Gotham se celebrará el 2 de diciembre. A continuación, os dejamos la lista completa de nominados:

Mejor PELÍCULA

Anora

Babygirl

Challengers

A Different Man

Nickel Boys

Mejor PELÍCULA Internacional

All We Imagine As Light

Green Border

Hard Truths

Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell

Vermiglio

Mejor INTERPRETACIÓN Principal

Pamela Anderson,...

The first nominations of the season are in as contenders for the 34th Gotham Awards were unveiled on Tuesday, with Anora, Hard Truths, and The Last Showgirl among 39 features and 25 performances in the running for nine awards.

Nominees were announced via X and seesAnora, whichleads the way on four nods,Babygirl, Challengers, A Different Man, and Nickel Boys up for the best feature prize, while Pamela Anderson, Adrien Brody, Saoirse Ronan, Mikey Madison, and Demi Moore are in the running for best lead performance.

Nickel Boys and I Saw The TV Glow each earned three nominations, while Hard Truths garnered two.

The nominations for the 34th Gothams Awards were unveiled on Tuesday, with Anora, Hard Truths, and The Last Showgirl among 39 features and 25 performances in the running for nine awards.

Nominees were announced via X and seesAnora, whichleads the way on four nods,Babygirl, Challengers, A Different Man, and Nickel Boys up for the best feature prize, while Pamela Anderson, Adrien Brody, Saoirse Ronan, Mikey Madison, and Demi Moore are in the running for best lead performance.

International feature film nominees are All We Imagine As Light, Green Border, Hard Truths, Inside The Yellow Cocoon Shell, and Vermiglio.

The inaugural best...

Awards season is officially underway, according to the Gotham Film & Media Institute, and “Anora,” “Babygirl,” “Challengers,” “A Different Man,” and “Nickel Boys” are among the films in competition at this year’s Gotham Awards.

On Tuesday, the membership-based, non-profit independent film group announced its nominees for the 2024 Gotham Awards, the “start of the annual awards season” according to press materials. “Anora” led with four nominations, including Best Feature, Best Lead Performance for Mikey Madison, Best Supporting Performance for Yura Borisov, and Best Director for Sean Baker.

The other Best Feature nominees included “Babygirl” (which landed Nicole Kidman a nomination for Best Lead Performance), “Challengers,” “A Different Man” (which also received recognition for Adam Pearson in Best Supporting Performance), and “Nickel Boys” (which had two other nominations – Best Director for RaMell Ross and Breakthrough Performance for Brandon Wilson).

Other highlights among the nominees include Demi Moore and Pamela Anderson in the Best Lead Performance category,...

The Gotham Film & Media Institute announced today the nominations for the 34th edition of The Gothams, including 39 feature films and 25 performances in nine award categories. Leading the Best Feature nominees are Anora, Babygirl, Challengers, A Different Man, and Nickel Boys.

“We are proud to announce the nominees for The Gothams, selected by nominating committees who bring their independent perspective to the selection process. This year’s nominations celebrate voices from across the globe, embodying the growing embrace of international cinema by audiences everywhere. We look forward to celebrating our nominees and our Gotham tributes in a few weeks,” said Sharp.

The 2024 Gothams will be held live and in person at 7 pm on Monday, December 2nd at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City.

Best Feature

Anora

Sean Baker, director; Sean Baker, Alex Coco, Samantha Quan, producers (Neon)

Babygirl

Halina Reijn, director; David Hinojosa, Julia Oh, Halina Reijn, producers (A24)

Challengers

Luca Guadagnino,...

Sean Baker’s Cannes Palme d’Or-winning Anora from Neon has nabbed four Gotham Award nominations today including Best Feature, Best Director, Outstanding Lead Performance for Mikey Madison and Outstanding Supporting Performance for Yura Borisov.

Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers from Orion/Amazon MGM was nominated for Best Feature. The studio’s Nickel Boys by RaMell Ross had noms for Best Feature and Best Director.

The indie-centric awards last year removed a longstanding budget cap on eligibility, an opening for bigger budget studio and streamer fare to submit for consideration.

A24 films were everywhere with multiple nominations for Babygirl, I Saw The TV Glow, Sing Sing and A Different Man. The Brutalist, Janet Planet and Love Lies Bleeding had noms as well.

The October noms and early December ceremony are industry bellwethers, coming at the start of awards season in the crush of fall festival buzz.

“We are proud to announce the nominees for The Gothams,...

“Anora,” “Babygirl,” “Challengers,” “A Different Man” and “Nickel Boys” have been nominated as the best films of 2024 by the 2024 Gotham Awards, the Gotham Film & Media Institute announced on Tuesday.

Sean Baker’s “Anora” led all films with four nominations, including Best Feature, Best Director and Outstanding Lead and Supporting Performances for Mikey Madison and Yuri Borisov.

In the gender-neutral Gotham acting categories, other nominees included Pamela Anderson for “The Last Showgirl,” Adrien Brody and Guy Pearce for “The Brutalist,” Nicole Kidman for “Babygirl,” Marianne Jean-Baptiste for “Hard Truths,” Demi Moore for “The Substance” and Saoirse Ronan for “The Outrun.”

Eligibility for the Gotham Awards used to be restricted to films that came in under a $35 million budget cap, but the awards did away with that rule last year. Currently, the definition of a film eligible for the Gothams is “filmmaking with a point of view … where the vision of an individual director,...

The Gotham Film and Media Institute announced Tuesday the nominations for the 34th annual Gothams, honoring 39 features and 25 performances across nine award categories. Nominees were chosen by a group of journalist- and programmer-led committees. This is the first major awards body to share nominations for the year in film, and here, the Gothams are led by “Anora,” “Babygirl,” “Challengers,” “A Different Man,” and “Nickel Boys” in the Best Feature category.

“We are proud to announce the nominees for The Gothams, selected by nominating committees who bring their independent perspective to the selection process. This year’s nominations celebrate voices from across the globe, embodying the growing embrace of international cinema by audiences everywhere. We look forward to celebrating our nominees and our Gotham tributes in a few weeks,” said Gotham Film and Media Institute executive director Jeffrey Sharp.

Per the Institute, nominees are chosen by committees of film critics, journalists,...

It’s officially awards season, baby. While there are still more than four months to go before we cross the finish line at the Academy Awards, this afternoon the Gotham Awards—honoring independent film—announced their crop of 2024 nominees, officially kickstarting campaign season and offering the first clues about which...

Exclusive: Venice Critics’ Week title Don’t Cry Butterfly has been boarded by Cj Cgv Vietnam for distribution in Vietnam.

Affiliated with Korea’s Cj Group, Cj Cgv Vietnam also distributed the Vietnamese-language Camera d’Or winner Inside The Yellow Cocoon Shell last year.

Don’t Cry Butterfly follows a 45-year old housewife, Tam, who learns through live TV that her husband is having an affair. Turning to mystical means, she then attempts to voodoo her husband back into love.

The debut feature by Duong Dieu Linh will have its world premiere at the Venice Critics’ Week on September 3 before arriving at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 10.

Don’t Cry Butterfly is a Vietnam-Singapore-Indonesia-Philippines co-production. Korea’s Barunson E&a picked up world sales rights to the title ahead of the Cannes market this year.

“The idea for this feature started 10 years ago, when I came back to Vietnam to make my first short film,...

Can’t make it to Toronto International Film Festival next week? Have no fear, Kino Film Collection is here to make you feel less left out. Though the streamer won’t be offering the latest selections from this year’s festival, to celebrate the annual showcase, it has created a program of 87 films that have previously screened there and will be available throughout the month. Below you can find some of the selections with language provided by Kino.

“3 Faces”

Winner of the Best Screenplay Award and nominated for a Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, “3 Faces” is Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s fourth feature since he was officially banned from filmmaking. Starring Behnaz Jafari as herself, Panahi’s film builds in narrative, thematic, and visual intricacy to put forth a grand expression of community and solidarity under the eye of oppression.

“Alps”

Before “The Favourite”, Academy...

Throughout the years, and at least to the people who do not deal extensively with Vietnamese cinema, the local movie industry was almost exclusively represented by Tran Anh Hung, whose films like “Cyclo”, “The Scent of Green Papaya” and “Vertical Ray of the Sun” are the first that come to the mind of any cinephile. However, the Camera D’or for best first feature film Pham Tien An won at the 76th Cannes Film Festival for “Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell” showed that there might be more to local cinema than the aforementioned director, who did won Best Director for “The Taste of Things”, in a production though, that is exclusively French.

Furthermore as Le Chou wrote in an article published last year in Asian Movie Pulse, “For the first time in modern Vietnam cinema since the establishment of its box office tracking, six local films topped the Vietnam box...

Vietnam’s Beta Media and Japan’s Aeon Entertainment have forged a joint venture that will plough $200m (VND5tn) into 50 premium cinema complexes in Vietnam and see the duo enter film production and distribution, opening up new horizons for the local film industry.

The first cinema complex under the Aeon Beta Cinema brand is expected to open its doors in 2025, with all 50 complexes to be built in provinces across Vietnam in the same year.

This strategic partnership leverages on the expertise of both parties. Aeon Entertainment is Japan’s largest cinema chain in terms of the number of theatres and screens,...

Art print by Aleksander Walijewski for Poor Things.In the last roundup, from October, three out of the four most popular posters on my Movie Poster of the Day Instagram over the previous six months were posters for Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things (2023)—two teasers and an official-release poster, all by the great Vasilis Marmatakis—which at that time was still almost two months away from its US theatrical run. So it's no surprise that the most "liked" poster since then is also a poster for Poor Things, an art print by the young, prodigiously talented Polish artist-designer Aleksander Walijewski. What was a surprise, however, is that this poster has racked up more than 10,000 likes since early February, making it by far the most popular poster ever on my Instagram, doubling its nearest competitor (Marmatakis’s original Poor Things teaser). And, making it feel as if Movie Poster of the...

Late 20th-century Vietnamese history casts a trancelike spell across Truong Minh Quy’s “Viet and Nam,” a thickly shadowed exploration – or should that be excavation? — of national trauma and its habit of living on, in spectral form, through subsequent generations. Given an edge of radical newness by its frank, grimily beautiful portrayal of gay lovemaking (seldom have the body-contouring properties of coal dust on sweat-slicked skin been more sensuously explored), still, the rhythms of Truong’s film are slow, and the curtains-drawn darkness of much of its 16mm imagery may induce a state of meandering, semi-directed sleepiness. But then perhaps Truong does not mean us to watch “Viet and Nam” so much as he wants us doze and dream our way in and out of it.

It is 2001 and Nam (Pham Thanh Hai) and Viet (Dao Duy Bao Dinh) — never distinctly identified as such within the film and given a...

Independent distributor Kino Lorber is expanding its Kino Film Collection US streaming business as a direct-to-consumer service and standalone app on Apple TV, Fire TV, Android TV and Roku.

The service was launched last November as one of Amazon’s Prime Video Channels, where it will continue to be available. Subscription to the standalone service will cost $5.99 a month.

The Kino collection features hundreds of films from Kino Lorber’s 4,000-title library as well as new releases fresh from theatres and festivals.

To mark its expansion, the service will this month offer a curated assortment of films originally seen at the Cannes festival,...

Kino Lorber is expanding its streaming footprint. The boutique art-house distributor just launched its own SVOD platform, the Kino Film Collection.

The new app is available now as a standalone service on Apple TV, Fire TV, Android TV, and Roku, and it will feature hundreds of movies from Kino Lorber’s film library of more than 4,000 titles. Subscriptions will begin at $5.99 per month.

In November 2023, Kino Lorber launched an Amazon Prime Video channel; you can still access its titles there. But having its own service puts the company in the race alongside other niche streaming options in the space, like the Criterion Channel ($10.99/month) or Mubi ($14.99/month).

As part of the launch, Kino Film Collection curated a selection of titles that showcase auteurs who have played at Cannes; the 2024 film festival is currently ongoing. The collection includes early movies from Yorgos Lanthimos, Jia Zhangke, and Ken Loach, as well as...

New York arthouse distributor Kino Lorber is expanding its streaming service, Kino Film Collection, currently available on Amazon Prime, to include a stand-alone SVOD which will feature hundreds of titles from its extensive back catalog, including features from the likes of Yorgos Lanthimos, Jia Zhangke, and Ken Loach.

Kino Lorber announced the new service timed to start of this year’s Cannes film festival. The stand-alone SVOD, available to subscribers for $5.99 a month, includes several Cannes highlights from years past, including Kaouther Ben Hania’s Oscar-nominated documentary Four Daughters and Thien An Pham-directed drama Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell, both winners of the Camera d’Or prize on the Croisette last year; Loach’s Sorry We Missed You, a 2019 competition title; and Palme d’Or winners Winter Sleep (2014) from Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Underground (1995) from Emir Kusturica.

“Cannes and the Kino Film Collection are so intertwined because we share a...

When it comes to the indie movie business, you don’t get more old-school than Kino Lorber. The New York outfit, founded as Kino International in 1977, has been the first source of independent cinema for U.S. audiences. It was the first to distribute films from Yorgos Lanthimos, Aki Kaurismäki, Wong Kar-wai, Andrei Tarkovsky and Michelangelo Antonioni in U.S. theaters and the first to restore and rerelease silent classics like Metropolis, The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, and the films of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin.

In 2009, when Richard Lorber’s home entertainment company Lorber Ht Digital acquired and merged with Kino International, physical media got added to the mix, and the newly minted Kino Lorber became known for its home entertainment releases, ranging from classic (Nosferatu, The Sacrifice) to cult (Mad Max, Emmanuelle). The Kino Lorber library now counts more than 4,000 titles and the company is continually adding to the list,...

Exclusive: Paris-based Nour Films has acquired French rights to Saudi director Tawfik Alzaidi’s first feature Norah ahead of its world premiere in the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard.

The film will make history as the first ever Saudi feature to play in Cannes’ Official Selection just six years after Saudi Arabia announced the end of its 35-year cinema ban.

“Norah is an elegant film that combines age-old traditions with a desire for emancipation. This emancipation is achieved through art, learning and a desire greater than oneself. Tawfik Akzaidi has beautifully crafted a film that is both powerful and delicate,” said Nour Films’s co-founding director Patrick Sibourd.

The deal was brokered by Sebastien Chesneau under his Cercamon banner which clinched the international sales mandate for the film last week.

Cercamon and Nour previously collaborated on Vietnamese drama Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell which premiered in Directors’ Fortnight...

Exclusive: Cercamon has acquired international sales rights for Saudi director Tawfik Alzaidi’s first feature Norah ahead of its world premiere in the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard.

Norah will make history in May as the first ever Saudi feature to play in Cannes’ Official Selection. The achievement comes six years after Saudi Arabia announced the end of its 35-year cinema ban and is a sign of the bubbling cinema scene that has sprung up since.

Set in Saudi Arabia in the 1990s when artistic expression was banned, the feature follows rookie teacher and clandestine artist Nader, who is sent to a remote village for his first post where he connects with a young woman, whose life has been stifled by the era of conservatism.

She ignites the creativity inside him and inspires him to paint again. At great risk, they develop a delicate connection and a quiet bond.