"Peter Hujar's Day" Leads the Spirit Award Nominations

by Cláudio Alves

PETER HUJAR'S DAY, Ira Sachs | © Janus Films

In the past few years, the Film Independent Spirit Awards have come closer and closer to The Academy, taste-wise. For a while, it seemed like they were becoming another station of the cross on the long path to Oscar gold, a precursor like so many others. For those who loved these prizes for their independent spirit, such a state of affairs was… well, dispiriting. This year, there's been a notable course correction. In part, it's a change predicated on a season dominated by American big-budget studio fare and international productions – both ineligible here. Still, when Peter Hujar's Day by Ira Sachs is your nomination leader, you're clearly not trying to live in the shadow of Oscar. Instead, the Spirits are doing their own thing, and that's how it should be.

Come discover the full list of nominees, on both the film and TV front, plus some color commentary, after the jump…

Click to read more ...

One Award After Another

by Cláudio Alves

Jafar Panahi on the set of IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT | © Neon

In the blink of an eye, the awards season goes from a sleepy little non-starter into a breakneck race for gold. In the past few days, various organizations announced their prizes, so it's time to start doing more of these round-ups. Though, if things continue to go the way of these first few groups, you'll soon grow tired of reading One Battle After Another at the top of these things. PTA's critical darling won the top honor at the Gotham Film Awards, from the New York and Atlanta critics, as well as the NBR.

But that wasn't the only story of the past few days. Iranian dissident director Jafar Panahi has, again, been sentenced to prison, banned from travelling or making films. As the It Was Just An Accident auteur has been living outside Iran since his last travel ban was lifted in 2023, the proceedings were conducted in absentia, and Panahi remains free. However, he has said he'll return to Iran to complete his sentence after the season ends. May these awards and encompassing media circus provide a platform for the director to speak up before he is silenced once more…

Click to read more ...

Gotham Awards Revue: "Blue Sun Palace"

by Nick Taylor

The variations of melancholy on display in Blue Sun Palace, ranging from everyday stressors to self-recriminating shame, to the profoundly dull ache of existing in the shadow of life-shattering upheavals, are an exquisite feat. Director Constance Tsang’s penchant for choreographing scenes in one shot allows her to parse the emotional gradations and inflections with a fine-toothed comb. Sometimes, she distills her character’s moods in a single static shot. At others, she has her camera pan back and forth across a conversation, as if it’s a silent but active participant. Her directorial choices always feel deliberate without being show-offy, even when teeing up another self-consciously beautiful image or logistically challenging camera movement...

Click to read more ...

Gotham Awards Revue: "Eephus"

by Nick Taylor

While all five Breakthrough Director nominees have writer/director credits for their films, only Eephus' Carson Lund can boast additional duties as his own editor, composer, sound designer, and casting director. If he can make three more films in the next eighteen months, America might finally have an answer to South Korea's most multi-hyphenate auteur, Hong Sang-soo...

Click to read more ...

Gotham Awards Revue: "Urchin"

by Nick Taylor

As with Familiar Touch, I am very solidly impressed by the filmmaking debut on display in Urchin, but first I need to know how the leading turn at the center of this wasn’t nominated. Frank Dillane is magnetic as Mike, the unhoused addict trying to reintegrate into London society after his latest stint in prison. He gives a very extroverted, mannered performance of a strung-out young man rooted in an empathetic understanding of Mike’s decision-making and needs. He never showboats at the cost of the other cast members, instead showing himself to be a receptive, active scene partner. Dillane finds a man who isn’t particularly malicious even when he uses others. At no point does this character stand in for any social issue or personality type, even as the film posits his story as a parable of how an individual’s recovery and downfall are informed by the support they receive. Nothing affects Mike’s ability to take care of himself more than the government housing he receives and later loses...

Click to read more ...