Academy Awards didn't even consider for the 15 list of noms, but the Gothams didn't forget The Oath, Laura Poitras' doc about a pair of folks close to Osama bin Laden that was distributed by Zeitgeist films and will most probably be compensated by the Cinema Eye Awards right before Sundance in January.
Compared with last year, Fortissmo Films come packing with only a single title, but that doesn't mean their sales agent won't be spending pretty much the entire festival from their rented office balcony. They signed a fairly ambitious deal with Fox - first time I've heard of a major studio outputting their titles to a films sales company of this nature and they've got one receiving a world preem at the festival in Sergei Loznitsa's My Joy.
Zero surprises here, and though I disliked this doc, I'm peeved that Psihoyos got shafted and didn't even get to speak. What's with all this time allocated to butt end jokes opening a category over the actual award winning speeches. Ben Stiller's Na'vi thing could have lengthened three winner speeches, including this one.
Mo’Nique still has one more trophy to pick up this weekend, but the good times for everyone involved in the making of Precious has pretty much come to a close. The film picked up the awards for best feature, best director (Lee Daniels), best actress, best supporting actress and the hard fought category for best first screenplay. The Best Foreign Film vote somehow got mangled up favoring An Education over A Prophet.
For the silver anniversary, the Indie Spirit awards (you can follow them tomorrow night) decided to do the gala thing without the tent and a full 12 hours in advance of their regular Saturday time slot. For the fun of it, I've decided to put my expertise to the test.