Gotham Delivers Independent Film Awards

Marisa Tomei and Michelle Williams.

« PREVIOUS

Last night the 18th annual Gotham Independent Film Awards took place at Cipriani on Wall Street. The award ceremony is the East Coast answer to the Independent Spirit Awards, and was founded as a satellite program of the 1979 NY Film Fest.

Indiewire reports back from the event with the big winners (listed after the jump), which included Frozen River's Melissa Leo who took home the breakthrough actor award and declared New York City "the birthplace of independent film, truly independent film." Check out more images from the night at Hollywood Elsewhere.

The 18th annual Gotham Independent Film Awards recipients:
Best Feature:
"Frozen River," directed by Courtney Hunt; produced by Heather Rae, Chip Hourihan (Sony Pictures Classics)

Best Documentary:
"Trouble the Water," directed and produced by Tia Lessin & Carl Deal (Zeitgeist Films in association with HBO Documentary Films)

Breakthrough Director Award:
Lance Hammer, director of "Ballast" (Alluvial Film Company)

Breakthrough Actor Award:
Melissa Leo ("Frozen River")

Best Ensemble Performance Award:
"Synecdoche, New York"
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Samantha Morton, Michelle Williams, Catherine Keener, Emily Watson, Dianne Wiest, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Hope Davis and Tom Noonan (Sony Pictures Classics); Casting Director Jeanne McCarthy

tied with

"Vicky Cristina Barcelona"
Scarlett Johansson, Rebecca Hall, Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz & Patricia Clarkson (The Weinstein Company); Casting Directors Patricia Kerrigan DiCerto & Juliet Taylor

Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You:
"Sita Sings the Blues" written, directed and animated by Nina Paley