AwardsWatch

This year's IFP Gotham Awards will be streamed live on our  official Facebook page this Monday, November 27th from Cipriani Wall Street in New York City. 

This year's ceremony will be hosted by director/performer John Cameron Mitchell.

Exclusive red carpet coverage begins at 6:15PM EST with the ceremony itself beginning at 8PM EST. 

This year's Tributees include Jason Blum, Sofia Coppola, Al Gore, Dustin Hoffman, Nicole Kidman, and Ed Lachman.

The IFP Gotham Awards are the first honors of the film awards season and feature nominees in the categories of Best Feature, Best Documentary, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Actress, Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director, Breakthrough Actor, Breakthrough Series (Long and Short Form), and more!

The Premier Sponsor of the IFP Gotham Awards

Our Platinum Sponsors

Our Official Water Sponsor

For more information on this year's ceremony, please click here.

Consider IFP on Giving Tuesday

We are just one week away from Giving Tuesday on November 28th.

Please take a moment to support IFP by participating in our Gotham Awards online auction here. Only seven days remain until the auction ends. 

These are just of few of the auction items: For 39 years, IFP has championed the work of storytellers, ensuring artists have the knowledge, resources and opportunities to develop their projects and reach the widest possible audience. 

In recent years, IFP has been expanding to embrace content creators working across an array of mediums, including cinema, television, web-based content and virtual reality. 

Your support helps IFP deliver its free and subsidized year-round programs to the independent film and media community. You can also make a tax-deductible, year-end contribution to IFP here.

For more information, please click here.

IFP Member Event: Gotham Awards viewing party at the Made in NY Media Center

Monday, November 27th at 6pm at the Made in NY Media Center by IFP 

The 27th annual IFP Gotham Awards take place next Monday evening, November 27th from Cipriani Wall Street! 

While the entire ceremony will be broadcast live on our Facebook page (beginning with red carpet coverage at 6:15pm), we want our IFP members to experience the show together in a group setting (with drinks, of course....there will definitely be drinks). 

Beginning at 6pm, stop by our Made in NY Media Center by IFP (30 John Street Brooklyn, NY) to watch the live broadcast with fellow members, network a bit, and have a beer on us (and make sure you voted for the Audience and Short Form awards beforehand!).

If you are an IFP member, RSVP by logging-in to the Member Dashboard and clicking on the "IFP Events" tab on the lefthand side. Your RSVP is complimentary! If you're not an IFP member, join today! 

Brimstone & Glory 

Now playing at the Quad Cinema at 34 W. 13th Street

Directed by Viktor Jakovleski, Produced by Affonso Gonçalves, Antontio Tonitzin Gómez, Viktor Jakovleski, Dan Janvey, Erdem Karahan, Elizabeth Lodge, Kellen Quinn, and Benh Zeitlin

In Tultepec, a small town north of Mexico City, thrill-seekers gather in throngs at the annual National Pyrotechnics Festival-the backdrop for this hypnotic documentary. But the exhilarating beauty of combustible art, which ranges from blazing painted bulls to a tower of shimmering embers, comes at a price, with spectators and craftsmen risking life and limb in the name of visual pleasure. Produced by Beasts of the Southern Wild director Benh Zeitlin, this directorial debut is a spectacular sensory experience from start to finish.

Brimstone & Glory is an alumnus of Spotlight on Documentaries at IFP Week. For more information, please click here.

Big Sonia

Continues at the Quad Cinema at 34 W. 13th Street

Directed by Todd Soliday and Leah Warshawski, Produced by Leah Warshawski

Perpetually clad in bright lipstick and leopard prints, nonagenarian Sonia Warshawski is a true one-of-a-kind. For decades, she's run a suburban tailor shop, the last store standing in a defunct shopping mall. She's also a Holocaust survivor, committed to speaking about the genocide she witnessed. 

When Sonia is served with an eviction notice, she's instilled with a new sense of urgency and introspection in this moving, frank, and surprisingly funny new documentary.

Big Sonia is an alumnus of Spotlight on Documentaries at IFP Week. For more information, please click here.

Podcast Pitch Night

Thursday, November 30th at 7pm

Come and hear the next wave of podcast superstars at our first annual Podcast Pitch Night. 

This rollicking evening will feature an exclusive, special conversation between The Nod's Brittany Luse and Eric Eddings, and podcasters extraordinaire to be announced, plus a post-show party! 

Registration includes: 

Podcast Pitch and Podcast Talk: 7:00-8:30pm in Theater 

Podcast Party (food and booze): 8:30-9:30pm in Lounge

IFP members receive a 30% discount with the code ClassyIFP. 

For more information on these classes and to purchase tickets, please click here.

Escape into America: The Eastern Oregon and Indie Memphis Film Festivals

by  Sarah Salovaara

Keeping on top of the media conversation in 2017 has begun to feel more like an exercise in self-harm than consumption. The dirty laundry is exhaustive and exhausting; we are quick to expose and defile, but quicker to move onto the next victimizer, leaving little lasting resolution in the wake of the penultimate upheaval. At the movies, we look for meaning where we can get it. Plots are politicized to the point where the once ghettoized "issue film" is mutating into standard grade. Even if the latest Thor joint is raking it in at the box office, cotton candy escapism is growing further and further from the norm across independent channels.

To read more, please click  here.

Documentary Editing for Filmmakers

Two-day class: Saturday Dec 2nd and Sunday, December 3rd from 10:30am - 5:30pm

Editing is at the core of documentary filmmaking. Yet there are few resources to learn about editing from the director's perspective. As a result, even relatively experienced filmmakers find the post-production process stressful and overwhelming. And for first-time filmmakers, it's a major stumbling block.

This two-day workshop, taught by Emmy-award-winning editor and producer Adam Bolt, will teach you how to think about editing in order to make better decisions while shooting and how to plan and manage a successful edit to get the most out of your budget and schedule. We'll also explore different storytelling strategies and discuss the most common editing pitfalls, using examples from real projects.

To read more, please click here.

Hamptons International Film Festival Screenwriters Lab

Final Deadline: November 28th, 2017

The Hamptons International Film Festival's Screenwriters Lab, going into its 18th year, is an intimate gathering that takes place each Spring in East Hampton, New York.

The Lab develops emerging screenwriting talent by pairing established writers & creative producers with up-and-coming screenwriters (chosen by HIFF in collaboration with key industry contacts).

The mentors advise in a one-on-one creative setting while additional events bring the participants together with board members, the local artistic community, and other friends of the festival. With scripts from past writers produced year after year, the Lab continues to be an inspiring and safe place for artists to find and hone their creative vision. A number of recent projects in the Lab have gone on to be produced and distributed and to screen at festivals around the world such as Sundance, South by Southwest, Karlovy Vary, Locarno and the Los Angeles Film Festival. 

For more information, please click here.

CPH:DOX - Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival 

Final Deadline: December 1st, 2017

CPH:DOX - Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival - is one of the largest documentary film festivals in the world. The next edition of CPH:DOX takes place March 15-25, 2018. 

CPH:DOX was founded in 2003. Supported by film professionals as well as the national press, CPH:DOX grew from 14,000 admissions in its first year to a record-breaking total of 97,500 admissions in 2017. CPH:DOX continues to develop and expand, presenting a program that ranges from the works of major international directors to new talent, from large-scale theatrical releases to film/video works in the field between cinema and visual art. The program goes beyond traditional boundaries between disciplines and media, offering perspectives on creative crossovers between cinema, television and media art.

To submit a film, we kindly ask you to either log in to or create a CPH:DOX profile which will allow you to easily submit any number of film, as well as to register for accreditation and engage in the festival later on. Creating a profile and logging in is easy and quick, and will help us to process your submissions and other requests as quickly as possible. If you forgot your password, you will be able to request a new one. 

In case of questions and before submitting your film, please familiarize yourself with our Rules and Regulations. If you have any further questions, feel free to contact us at programme@cphdox.dk. To submit your film, please click here to log in or create a new profile. 

The second and final deadline is on December 1, 2017 (only for new films finished after our first deadline on September 1). We are looking much forward to see your films!

For more information, please click here.

SFFILM / Westridge Grant

Regular Deadline: February 2nd, 2018

SFFILM / Westridge Grant awards $200,000 annually to support US based independent narrative filmmakers in screenwriting and development stages in grants of $20,000 - $25,000. This grant supports filmmakers who are telling stories addressing significant social issues and questions of our time. There is no Bay Area pre-requisite for this grant and additional support includes mentorship from SFFILM and Westridge, as well as a week intensive of meetings and mentorship in SF. Check out the announcement in Filmmaker Magazine and on the SFFILM / Westridge Grant website."

For more information, please click here.