"Moonrise Kingdom" is Best Picture Winner at 2012 Gotham Awards

The first "best picture" winner of the 2012-13 movie award season is Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom.  The romance film about a preteen couple caught in the intense throes of young love picked up the top prize at last night's ceremony (Monday, November 26, 2012) for the 2012 Gotham Awards.

The Gotham Awards is an annual film awards ceremony that honors independent films. The Gotham Awards are part of The Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP), the nation’s oldest and largest organization of independent filmmakers. The Gotham Awards also signal the kick-off to the film awards season.

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

22nd Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards Winners:

Best Feature:
Moonrise Kingdom
Wes Anderson, director; Wes Anderson, Scott Rudin, Steven Rales, Jeremy Dawson, producers (Focus Features)

Best Documentary:
How to Survive a Plague
David France, director; Howard Gertler, David France, producers (Sundance Selects)

Best Ensemble Performance:
Your Sister’s Sister
Emily Blunt, Rosemarie Dewitt, Mark Duplass (IFC Films)

Breakthrough Director:
Benh Zeitlin for Beasts of the Southern Wild (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

Breakthrough Actor:
Emayatzy Corinealdi in Middle of Nowhere (AFFRM and Participant Media)

Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You:
An Oversimplification of Her Beauty
Terence Nance, director; Terence Nance, Andrew Corkin, James Bartlett, producers

The Calvin Klein Spotlight on Women Filmmakers ‘Live the Dream’ grant is 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.

Stacie Passon, director, Concussion WINNER

The 3rd Annual Gotham Independent Film Audience Award:
Voted on by an independent film community of 230,000 film fans worldwide. To be eligible, a U.S. film must have won an audience award at one of the top 50 U.S. or Canadian film festivals from November 2011 through October 2012. The nominees were announced November 5th, and the winner revealed at the Gotham Awards ceremony.

Winner:
ARTIFACT
Directed by Bartholomew Cubbins
Produced by Jared Leto and Emma Ludbrook

Nominees:
BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD
Director: Benh Zeitlin
Producers: Michael Gottwald, Dan Janvey, Josh Penn

BURN: ONE YEAR ON THE FRONT LINES OF THE BATTLE TO SAVE DETROIT
Directors: Brenna Sanchez, Tom Putnam
Producers: Brenna Sanchez, Tom Putnam

THE INVISIBLE WAR
Director: Kirby Dick
Producers: Amy Ziering, Tanner King Barklow

ONCE IN A LULLABY: THE PS 22 CHORUS STORY
Director: Jonathan Kalafer
Producers: Steve Kalafer, Jonathan Kalafer, Bao Nguyen

The Bingham Ray Award (The recipient of this award was chosen by a close group of Bingham’s friends and colleagues.):

BENH ZEITLIN, director of BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD