Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter won four awards including Best Feature at the 31st Annual Gotham Awards. Maggie Gyllenhaal won for Best Screenplay and the Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director award given to a director for their first fiction feature film. The Lost Daughter is the screen adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s novel about a solitary vacationing professor and mother of two grown daughters whose encounters with a different young mother provoke haunting memories of her own past

The award for Best Documentary Feature was presented to Flee, the stirring, mostly animated documentary by Danish filmmaker Jonas Poher Rasmussen which recounts the multi-year history from childhood until now of Amin Nawabi (a pseudonym), who with his mother and siblings became refugees fleeing the Taliban in Afghanistan, through Russia, and eventually to Denmark where, despite trauma and a hidden past, there’s possibility for Nawabi of a new home and lasting love.

Winning the award for Best International Feature was Drive My Car, directed by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, adapted from a short story by Haruki Murakami into a gently emotional epic in which an actor/director harboring an unspoken grief and anger embarks on directing a multi-language production of Uncle Vanya in another city and gradually opens to his assigned driver, who has losses of her own.

Receiving an Outstanding Lead Performance award was Frankie Faison for his brilliantly varied and devastating performance in The Killing of Kenneth Chamberlain, based on the true story of the resulting tragedy when police were sent to check on an elderly veteran with physical and mental health issues after his medical alert link was accidentally triggered.

Receiving the Breakthrough Performer award was Emilia Jones for her sensitive–and musical –lead role as a child of Deaf parents torn between her responsibility to her family and the possibility of a future of her own in CODA, for which actor Troy Katsur won the Outstanding Supporting Performance award for playing her funny, opinionated dad who is fearful of losing her but yearning to connect and understand her.

The inaugural Icon Tribute (presented by Kia Brooks, Deputy Director of The Gotham and Seret Scott) was awarded posthumously to poet, playwright, writer, filmmaker, director, civil rights activist, and educator Kathleen Collins and was accepted by her daughter, Nina Lorez Collins. Kathleen Collins’ most known film work is Losing Ground, one of the very first fictional features by an African-American woman filmmaker. The Icon Tribute has been created to call attention to the boldness, artistry, and impact of a filmmaker from a marginalized community whose work has not been previously recognized by the organization in its previous awards history.

An Ensemble Tribute was given to the cast of The Harder They Fall, including Jonathan Majors, Zazie Beetz, Delroy Lindo, LaKeith Stanfield, Danielle Deadwyler, Edi Gathegi, R.J. Cyler, Damon Wayans Jr., Deon Cole with Regina King and Idris Elba.

Winners of 31st Annual Gotham Award

Best Feature

The Lost Daughter
Directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal
Produced by Osnat Handelsman Keren, Talia Kleinhendler, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Charles Dorfman
Released by Netflix

Best Documentary

Flee
Directed Jonas Poher Rasmussen
Produced Monica Hellström, Signe Byrge Sørensen, and Charlotte De La Gournerie
Released by NEON

Best International Feature

Drive My Car
Directed by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
Produced by Teruhisa Yamamoto
Released by Sideshow and Janus Films

Outstanding Lead Performance

To two performers:
Olivia Colman in The Lost Daughter
Released by Netflix

and

Frankie Faison in The Killing of Kenneth Chamberlain
Released by Gravitas Ventures

Outstanding Supporting Performance

Troy Kotsur in CODA
Released by Apple TV+

Breakthrough Performer

Emilia Jones in CODA
Released by Apple TV+

Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director

Maggie Gyllenhaal for The Lost Daughter
Released by Netflix

Best Screenplay

Maggie Gyllenhaal for The Lost Daughter
Released by Netflix

Breakthrough Series (Over 40 Minutes)

Squid Game
Executive Produced by Kim Ji-yeon and Hwang Dong-hyuk
Netflix

Breakthrough Series (Under 40 Minutes)

Reservation Dogs
Created by Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi
Executive Produced by Taika Waititi, Sterlin Harjo, and Garrett Basch
FX

Breakthrough Nonfiction Series

Philly D.A.
Created by Ted Passon, Yoni Brook, and Nicole Salazar
Executive Produced by Dawn Porter, Sally Jo Fifer, Lois Vossen, Ryan Chanatry, Gena Konstantinakos, Jeff Seelbach, and Patty Quillin
Topic, Independent Lens, PBS

Focus Features & JetBlue Student Short Film Showcase

Tessa Thompson announced the winners of the third annual showcase supported by sponsoring partners Focus Features and JetBlue. The program is designed to discover and empower a diverse group of emerging filmmakers and foster multi-platform distribution of their work. Each winner receives a $10,000 grant and have their films shown for twelve months on JetBlue’s seatback entertainment systems under the “Gotham Selects” movie category and on Focus Features digital streaming platforms. Throughout 2022, winning filmmakers will also receive ongoing mentorship and workshopping opportunities from The Gotham.

The winning filmmakers and shorts were:

Evan Bode, Thine Own Self, Syracuse University
Jorge G. Camarena, Spaceship, American Film Institute
Akanksha Chawla, Close Ties to Home Country, Columbia College
Jun Hee Han, Uncle, University of California, Los Angeles
J. Sean Smith, #Whitina, University of Southern California