Awards, 11/30.

"Busiest day ever?" wondered Eugene Hernandez out loud last night as he raced from the airport to an awards ceremony to indieWIRE's 10th anniversary party. And that was just some of the action stateside. While many of us were still scanning the lists of Indie Spirit Awards nominations and the Sundance lineup, Brits gathered in London for their Independent Film Awards. Click and you'll see that This is England won best feature, Kevin McDonald best director (for The Last King of Scotland) and that Red Road took the top two acting awards (for Kate Dickie and Tony Curran).

"Half Nelson took home a trio of prizes at the 16th annual IFP Gotham Awards," reports Lily Oei at indieWIRE. "Along with the best feature prize, the film also nabbed honors in the other two categories in which it was nominated - a director's prize for Ryan Fleck, and a breakthrough actor award for newcomer Shareeka Epps." Best doc goes to Iraq in Fragments, and Lily Oei has more highlights of the evening.

Updated through 12/1.

Updates: "A huge New York cheer went up for Half Nelson when it won at the end of the night, reflecting the excitement over an indie film conceived, cast and shot in New York. A heaving crowd of folks affiliated with Half Nelson assembled on the stage, but most, given the late hour, mercifully stayed away from the microphone." David Carr has a full and fun report. Naturally.

More from Gregg Goldstein for the Hollywood Reporter.

Filmmaker's Scott Macaulay notes that you can send questions to Half Nelson filmmakers Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden via the Daily Reel's "Ask the Expert" section.

ST VanAirsdale has a few thoughts after his evening at the Gothams: "If, as IFP executive director Michelle Byrd has been at pains to stress of late, 'independence' is more abstraction than brand name, awards like Babel's and [Edward] Norton's and Kate Winslet's likely confused the relative values of each quantity beyond calculation.... IFP cornered itself into the unadulterated disgrace of stiffing the Shortbus cast, which staked its careers on a movie (a New York movie, by the way) that literally had no precedent before sitting and watching the derivative, deep-pocketed globe-trotter [Alejandro] González Iñárritu walk away with their rightful recognition. What's left after that but a shrug and a yawn?"

Update, 12/1: David Carr's got Gotham Night video.

Posted by dwhudson at November 30, 2006 12:34 AM