Birds & the Bees…Boyhood Leads 24th Gotham Independent Film Award Noms

Deemed as his career best, Richard Linklater’s Boyhood leads all nominations for the 24th Gotham Independent Film Awards with winks in the Best Feature, Best Actor (Ethan Hawke), Best Actress (Patricia Arquette) and Breakthrough Actor (Ellar Coltrane) while Birdman, Nightcrawler, Under the Skin and Dear White People technically place second with two noms a piece in the five possible categories. Arguably 2014’s most prolific indie film in Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash failed to move the five-critic panels in the Best Film category and sans a Best Supporting category, means Miles Teller receives Best Award nom but J.K. Simmons will just have to wait it out for the Indie Spirit Awards to acknowledge his perf.  A special Gotham Jury Award has already been awarded to the ensemble performance of the players of Foxcatcher (Steve Carell, Mark Ruffalo, and Channing Tatum) shrewd Vanessa Redgrave perhaps didn’t get enough screen time to merit the distinction among these acting peers.

While their are several headscratchers, aside from the stellar Best Doc noms which include Robert Greene’s Actress and Stephanie Spray & Pacho Velez’s Manakamana, we’re glad to see that Eliza Hittman receive a nod for the brilliant It Felt Like Love and almost surprised to see that Glazer’s Under the Skin didn’t get lost in the best of discussion due to its early release (remember most of us saw this in 2013). Here are the noms:

Best Feature
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance): Alejandro G. Iñárritu (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Boyhood: Richard Linklater (IFC Films)
The Grand Budapest Hotel: Wes Anderson (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Love Is Strange: Ira Sachs (Sony Pictures Classics)
Under the Skin: Jonathan Glazer (A24 Films)

Best Documentary
Actress: Robert Greene (The Cinema Guild)
CITIZENFOUR: Laura Poitras (RADiUS, Participant Media, and HBO Documentary Films)
Life Itself: Steve James (Magnolia Pictures and CNN Films)
Manakamana: Stephanie Spray & Pacho Velez (The Cinema Guild)
Point and Shoot: Marshall Curry (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)

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)

Spotlight on Women Filmmakers ‘Live the Dream’ Grant
Garrett Bradley, director, Below Dreams
Claire Carré, director, Embers
Chloé Zhao, director, Songs My Brothers Taught Me