BIRDMAN Among Nominees for 24th ANNUAL GOTHAM INDEPENDENT FILM AWARDS

The Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP), the nation's premier member organization of independent storytellers, announced today the nominees for the 24th Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards by IFP. The Gotham Awards is one of the leading awards for independent film and signals the kick-off to the film awards season. For 2014, the seven competitive awards include Best Feature, Best Documentary, Best Actor, Best Actress (presenting sponsor euphoria Calvin Klein), Breakthrough Actor, the Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director award, and the Gotham Audience Award. In addition to the competitive awards, Gotham Award Tributes will be given to actor Tilda Swinton, director Bennett Miller and Industry Tribute recipient Netflix's TED Sarandos.

As the first major awards ceremony of the film season, the Gotham Independent Film Awards by IFP provide critical early recognition and media attention to worthy independent films. The awards are also unique for their ability to assist in catapulting award recipients prominently into national awards season attention, including recent winners and ultimate Oscar® contenders.

Twenty-four films received nominations this year. In addition, the nominating committee for the Best Actor category voted to award a Special Jury Award jointly to the three leading actors in Foxcatcher - Steve Carell, Mark Ruffalo, and Channing Tatum - for their ensemble work.

This year the Gotham Audience Award nominees are comprised of the15 films nominated for Best Feature, Best Documentary, and the Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director Award. The winner will be selected by online voting of IFP members. Voting for that award begins November 19th at 12:01 AM EST and concludes on November 26th at 5:00 PM EST.

"Each year the Gotham Awards honor the best work from our independent storytellers and help new audiences discover their work. We congratulate this year's nominees, from THE MASTER film artists to the talented newcomers, a true representation of the rich and diverse range of today's independent filmmaking," said Joana Vicente, Executive Director of IFP and the Made in NY Media Center. "We are grateful to our nominating committees of film critics, journalists, programmers and film curators for their dedication to selecting the nominees from so many worthy submissions."

Nominees are selected by committees of film critics, journalists, festival programmers, and film curators. Separate juries of writers, directors, actors, producers, editors and others directly involved in making films will determine the final Gotham Award recipients.

The Gotham Awards ceremony will be held on Monday, December 1st at Cipriani Wall Street.

The 2014 Gotham Independent Film Award nominations are:

Best Feature

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

Alejandro G. Iñárritu, director; Alejandro G. Iñárritu, John Lesher, Arnon Milchan, James W. Skotchdopole, producers (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

Boyhood

Richard Linklater, director; Richard Linklater, Cathleen Sutherland, Jonathan Sehring, John Sloss, producers (IFC Films)

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Wes Anderson, director; Wes Anderson, Scott Rudin, Steven Rales, Jeremy Dawson, producers (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

Love Is Strange

Ira Sachs, director; Lucas Joaquin, Jay Van Hoy, Lars Knudsen, Ira Sachs, Jayne Baron Sherman, producers (Sony Pictures Classics)

Under the Skin

Jonathan Glazer, director; Nick Wechsler, James Wilson, producers (A24 Films)

Best Documentary

Actress

Robert Greene, director; Douglas Tirola, Susan Bedusa, Robert Greene, producers (The Cinema Guild)

CITIZENFOUR

Laura Poitras, director; Laura Poitras, Mathilde Bonnefoy, Dirk Wilutzky, producers (RADiUS, Participant Media, and HBO Documentary Films)

Life Itself

Steve James, director; Zak Piper, Steve James, Garrett Basch, producers (Magnolia Pictures and CNN Films)

Manakamana

Stephanie Spray & Pacho Velez, directors; Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Véréna Paravel, producers (The Cinema Guild)

Point and Shoot

Marshall Curry, director; Marshall Curry, Elizabeth Martin, Matthew Van Dyke, producers (The Orchard and American Documentary / POV)

Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director Award

Ana Lily Amirpour for A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Kino Lorber)

James Ward Byrkit for Coherence (Oscilloscope Laboratories)

Dan Gilroy for Nightcrawler (Open Road Films)

Eliza Hittman for It Felt Like Love (Variance Films)

Justin Simien for Dear White People (Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions)

Best Actor*

Bill Hader in The Skeleton Twins (Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions)

Ethan Hawke in Boyhood (IFC Films)

Oscar Isaac in A Most Violent Year (A24 Films)

Michael Keaton in Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

Miles Teller in Whiplash (Sony Pictures Classics)

* The 2014 Best Actor nominating panel also voted to award a special Gotham Jury Award jointly to Steve Carell, Mark Ruffalo, and Channing Tatum for their ensemble performance in Foxcatcher (Sony Pictures Classics).

Best Actress

Patricia Arquette in Boyhood (IFC Films)

Gugu Mbatha-Raw in Beyond the Lights (Relativity Media)

Julianne Moore in Still Alice (Sony Pictures Classics)

Scarlett Johansson in Under the Skin (A24 Films)

Mia Wasikowska in Tracks (The Weinstein Company)

Breakthrough Actor

Riz Ahmed in Nightcrawler (Open Road Films)

Macon Blair in Blue Ruin (RADiUS)

Ellar Coltrane in Boyhood (IFC Films)

Joey King in Wish I Was Here (Focus Features)

Jenny Slate in Obvious Child (A24 Films)

Tessa Thompson in Dear White People (Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions)

Twenty writers, critics and programmers participated in the nomination process, considering 199 eligible submissions. The Nominating Committees for the 2014 Gotham Independent Film Awards were:

Nominating Committee for Best Feature and Breakthrough Director:

Justin Chang, Senior Film Critic, Variety

Eric Kohn, Lead Film Critic, Indiewire

Christy Lemire, Film Critic, ChristyLemire.com and co-host, What the Flick?!

Andrew O'Hehir, Film Critic, Salon.com

Joshua Rothkopf, Film Editor, Time Out New York

Nominating Committee for Best Documentary:

Charlotte Cook, Director of Programming, Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival

Bilge Ebiri, Film Critic, New York Magazine and Vulture

Cynthia Fuchs, Film-TV Editor, PopMatters

Tom Hall, Executive Director, Montclair Film Festival

Sky Sitney, Visiting Artist, Georgetown University Film and Media Studies Department

Nominating Committee for Best Actor and Best Actress:

Mark Harris, Editor-at-Large, Entertainment Weekly and columnist, Grantland

Ann Hornaday, Film Critic, The Washington Post

Glenn Kenny, Critic, RogerEbert.com; author, Anatomy of an Actor: Robert De Niro

David Rooney, Film & Theater Critic, The Hollywood Reporter

Elizabeth Weitzman, Film Critic, New York Daily News

Nominating Committee for Breakthrough Actor:

Sam Adams, Editor of Criticwire, Indiewire

A.A. Dowd, Film Editor, The A. V. Club

Sheila O'Malley, Film Critic, RogerEbert.com

Ronnie Scheib, Film Critic, Variety

Stephen Whitty, Film Critic, Newark Star-Ledger

Spotlight on Women Filmmakers 'Live the Dream' Grant

For the fourth consecutive year, IFP is proud present the euphoria Calvin Klein Spotlight on Women Filmmakers 'Live the Dream' grant, a $25,000 cash award for an alumna of IFP's Independent Filmmaker Labs. This grant aims to further the careers of emerging women directors by supporting the completion, distribution and audience engagement strategies of their first feature film.

The nominees are:

Garrett Bradley, director, Below Dreams

Claire Carré, director, Embers

Chloé Zhao, director, Songs My Brothers Taught Me

Gotham Independent Film Audience Award

New this year, IFP members will have a voice in determining the 5th Annual Gotham Independent Film Audience Award with nominees comprised of the 15 nominated films in the Best Feature, Best Documentary, and Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director Award categories. All IFP current, active members at the Individual Level and above will be eligible to vote. Voting will take place online from November 19th at 12:01 AM EST and conclude on November 26th at 5:00 PM EST. In addition, IFP will be scheduling screenings of many of the nominated films for IFP members in the theater at the Made in NY Media Center by IFP in Brooklyn. These screenings will take place from November 5-12. The winner of the Audience Award will be announced at the Gotham Awards Ceremony on December 1, 2014.

Sponsors

The Premier Sponsor of the 24th annual Gotham Independent Film Awards is The New York Times and the Platinum Sponsor is euphoria Calvin Klein. Additionally, the awards will be promoted nationally in an eight-page special advertising section in The New York Times in November 2014.

2014 Gotham Independent Film Awards by IFP- Alphabetical List of Nominated Films

Actress

Best Documentary

Beyond the Lights

Best Actress

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

Best Feature

Best Actor

Blue Ruin

Breakthrough Actor

Boyhood

Best Feature

Best Actor

Best Actress

Breakthrough Actor

CITIZENFOUR

Best Documentary

Coherence

Breakthrough Director

Dear White People

Breakthrough Director

Breakthrough Actor

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

Breakthrough Director

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Best Feature

It Felt Like Love

Breakthrough Director

Life Itself

Best Documentary

Love Is Strange

Best Feature

Manakamana

Best Documentary

A Most Violent Year

Best Actor

Nightcrawler

Breakthrough Director

Breakthrough Actor

Obvious Child

Breakthrough Actor

Point and Shoot

Best Documentary

The Skeleton Twins

Best Actor

Still Alice

Best Actress

Tracks

Best Actress

Under the Skin

Best Feature

Best Actress

Whiplash

Best Actor

Wish I Was Here

Breakthrough Actor

About IFP

The Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP) champions the future of storytelling by connecting artists with essential resources at all stages of development and distribution. The organization fosters a vibrant and sustainable independent storytelling community through its year-round programs, which include Independent Film Week, Filmmaker Magazine, the Gotham Independent Film Awards and the Made in NY Media Center by IFP, a new incubator space developed with the Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment. IFP represents a growing network of 10,000 storytellers around the world, and plays a key role in developing 350 new feature and documentary works each year. During its 35-year history, IFP has supported over 8,000 projects and offered resources to more than 20,000 filmmakers, including Debra Granik, Miranda July, Michael Moore, Dee Rees, and Benh Zeitlin. More info at www.ifp.org.

About the Gotham Independent Film Awards by IFP

The Gotham Independent Film Awards by IFP, selected by distinguished juries and presented in New York City, the home of independent film, are the first honors of the film awards season. This public showcase honors the filmmaking community, expands the audience for independent films, and supports the work that IFP does behind the scenes throughout the year to bring such films to fruition.

For information on attending: http://gotham.ifp.org

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