The opening salvo of Hollywood’s 2021–22 awards season came courtesy of the Gotham Film & Media Institute on Nov. 29 at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City. This year’s 31st annual Gotham Awards celebration—recognizing outstanding and original achievements in independent film and new television—helped kick-start an exciting season for buzzy filmmakers and actors. From Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Lost Daughter” taking home a number of awards to “Squid Game” and “Reservation Dogs” winning breakthrough series prizes, here’s our rundown of the evening.
Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Lost Daughter” stole the show.
Writer-director Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Lost Daughter,” adapted for Netflix from the Elena Ferrante novel, took home the biggest awards of the night. For her feature directorial debut, Gyllenhaal earned the best screenplay and Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director prizes, and the film was honored with best feature, the organization’s top category. The story of a vacationing professor who becomes obsessed with another mother is now well-positioned to be considered by nominators at the upcoming Critics’ Choice Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards, Oscars, and more.
“It’s expensive to make movies,” said Gyllenhaal in one of her acceptance speeches. “Movies cost a lot of money. You can write them, but someone’s got to make them…. The question becomes: What is valuable, and is it high art? And is it appealing to men to see women that actually look like their wives or their sisters and their mothers up on screen? I think the lineup of films being celebrated here tonight says: Yeah, it fucking is.”
In a rare move for an awards voting body, Gotham stated earlier this year that acting award categories would no longer be separated by gender. For her leading performance in “The Lost Daughter,” Olivia Colman received one of two outstanding lead performance film awards, the other going to Frankie Faison for Gravitas Venture’s “The Killing of Kenneth Chamberlain.” Winning the outstanding supporting and breakthrough performer awards, respectively, were Troy Kotsur and Emilia Jones as a deaf father and his hearing daughter in Apple TV+’s “CODA.”
Related: Learning ASL Completely Changed Acting for ‘CODA’ Star Emilia Jones
“Squid Game” and “Reservation Dogs” won breakthrough series prizes.
The Gotham Award TV categories showered love on another Netflix property: the hit Korean drama “Squid Game,” winner of the long-form breakthrough series prize. Producer Kim Ji-yeon accepted the honor, saying, “We’ve experienced so many miracles since we launched this show…. The biggest of them is how much love and support you all have shown to a foreign-language series with a very strange title.”
FX comedy “Reservation Dogs,” the story of Indigenous teenagers in Oklahoma created by Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi, took home the breakthrough series prize for a show under 40 minutes. The first-ever TV acting prizes, also not separated by gender, went to Ethan Hawke for his starring role on Showtime’s “The Good Lord Bird” and Thuso Mbedu for her performance on Amazon Prime Video’s “The Underground Railroad.”
Gotham Career Tributes were also handed out at the ceremony.
During the ceremony, a number of career tributes were distributed. Julianne Moore and Pablo Larraín honored Kristen Stewart; Hawke honored Peter Dinklage; and Mark Ruffalo honored director Jane Campion. Receiving an Industry Tribute honor was Magnolia Pictures chief Eamonn Bowles. Also previously announced was the Ensemble Tribute prize, which this year went to the cast of writer-director Jeymes Samuel’s “The Harder They Fall” from Netflix: Jonathan Majors, Zazie Beetz, Delroy Lindo, LaKeith Stanfield, Danielle Deadwyler, Edi Gathegi, R.J. Cyler, Damon Wayans Jr., Deon Cole, Idris Elba, and Regina King.
For a full list of 2021 Gotham Award nominees and winners, you can visit the organization’s official site here. Also, be sure to stay tuned for the latest updates on this season with Backstage’s awards coverage.
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