Slamdance has unveiled The Indie Awards, a new annual award show dedicated to celebrating independent filmmaking. The inaugural ceremony will take place on December 9, 2024, at the Directors Guild of America Theater in Los Angeles, hosted by comedians and actors Nic Novicki (Boardwalk Empire, The Sopranos) and Steve Way (Ramy).

The Indies will spotlight US and Indigenous films that are overlooked by major festivals and distributors and go unrecognized during awards season. This event is designed to champion emerging independent filmmakers whose work is bold, resourceful, and impactful.

“Independent U.S. and Indigenous filmmakers feel neglected and abandoned,” said co-founder Paul Rachman. “The current landscape for recognizing fresh voices in cinema has never been more bleak due to the ongoing toll of a studio, tech, subscription-controlled landscape. This inaugural year of The Indies, coinciding with the Slamdance Film Festival’s move to Los Angeles, can spark the recognition and support these films and filmmakers deserve from Hollywood and the Motion Picture industry at large.”

Co-founder Ben Umstead added: “To rectify this sense of abandonment, we went straight to the filmmakers. The fact that we weren’t asking them to submit and pay a fee gave them this instant sense of being supported.

Knowing the anxiety filmmakers experience from closed-door tactics, being transparent about our development and nomination process was also paramount. We wanted every eligible filmmaker to know that even if they didn’t get a nomination they had our gratitude and solidarity in helping create an antidote to the status quo.”

To be eligible for The Indie Awards, films must have played at one or more of a carefully selected group of North American festivals that champion diverse and inclusive independent films from the United States and Turtle Island. Additionally, films that had their World Premiere at Sundance, SXSW, or Tribeca are not eligible.

The inaugural year’s list of festivals that eligible films played at are as follows: American Indian Film Festival, Atlanta Film Festival, Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, Camden International Film Festival, CAAMFest, Chicago Underground Film Festival, CineQuest Film & Creativity Festival, Cucalorus Film Festival, Florida Film Festival, Hot Docs, Indie Memphis, ImagineNATIVE, MountainFilm Festival, New Orleans Film Festival, Provincetown International Film Festival, ReelAbilities: New York, Rocky Mountain Women’s Film Festival, Sidewalk Film Festival, Tallgrass Film Festival, and Urbanworld Film Festival.

Once a film is deemed eligible, it undergoes a review process by the Documentary Feature or Narrative Feature Nomination Committees which are composed of esteemed film critics and scholars who evaluate all eligible films and nominate select works across a range of categories, with a special emphasis on the collaborative nature of cinema.

After nomination, the films are judged by the Documentary Feature and Narrative Feature Juries, composed of seasoned professionals from the alternative and independent filmmaking communities.

In addition, Special Honorary awards help spotlight specific communities, including the Native Viewpoint Awards, selected by journalist Vincent Schilling – Akwesasne Mohawk. “The Native Viewpoint awards signify the ever-present voice of the Indigenous storyteller,” cites Schilling. “Native films are a wonderful celebration of the story and the resilience of Native people. My selections are the epitome of this sentiment.”

Slamdance previously announced that after 28 years in Park City, its annual film festival will move to Los Angeles, starting in February 2025. The festival will run February 20-26, 2025 at venues in and surrounding Hollywood, including the Landmark Theatres and the DGA Theater Complex, with more locations to be announced.

Here’s the full list of nominations for the inaugural Indie Awards.

Narrative Features (Jury Awards)

Best Narrative Feature Nominees (Director and Producer)
Atikamekw Suns (Chloé Leriche, Director and Producer)
Free Time (Director Ryan Martin Brown, Director and Producers Mackenzie Jamieson, Justin Zuckerman, Paula González-Nasser, Nolan Kelly)
The People’s Joker (Director Vera Drew and Producer Joey Lyons)

Outstanding Storytelling Craft Nominees (Screenwriter and Editor)
Chloé Leriche (Writer, Editor) and Natalie Lamoureux (Editor) / Atikamekw Suns
Ryan Martin Brown (Writer, Editor) and Byron Leon (Editor) / Free Time
Vera Drew (Writer, Editor) and Bri LeRose (Writer) / The People’s Joker

Outstanding Technical Achievement Nominees (Winner could be Production Design, Score, Sound Design, Special/Visual Effects, Cinematography)
Glauco Bermudez (Director of Photography) / Atikamekw Suns
Cooper Vacheron (Visual Effects Artist) / Booger
Courtney McIntosh (Production Designer) / The People’s Joker

Outstanding Ensemble and Casting (Award goes to entire cast and casting director)
Mirotansa Chilton, Jacques Newashish, Wikwasa Newashish, Carl-David Ottawa (Cast) and Chloé Leriche (Casting Director) / Atikamekw Suns
Colin Burgess, Rajat Suresh, Holmes, Jessie Pinnick, James Webb, Eric Yates, Alex Bliss, Michael Patrick Nicholson, Rebecca Rose Bulnes, and Steve Young (Cast) / Free Time
Keris Hope Hill, Melanie Bray, Constant Bernard, Alex Trahan, Josee Young (Cast) and Melanie Bray, John Buchan and Jason Knight (Casting) / Rosie

Documentary Features (Jury Awards)

Best Documentary Feature (Director and Producer)
All We Carry (Director Cady Voge, and Producers Laura Pilloni, Laura Tatham, Rachel Clara Reed)
Israelism (Directors Erin Axelman and Sam Eilertsan, and Producers Daniel J. Chalfin, Nadia Saah, Erin Axelman)
Sweetheart Deal (Directors Elisa Levine and Gabriel Miller, and Producers Peggy Case, Elisa Levine, Alan Pruzan)

Outstanding Storytelling Craft (Editor, Director and Writer if credited)
Cady Voge (Director and Writer) and Rachel Clara Reed (Editor and Writer) / All We Carry
Kristina Motwani (Editor), Kevin Duncan Wong (Director), Todd Sills (Co-Director), and Kar Yin Tham (Co-Director) / Home Is A Hotel
Karen Sim (Writer), Elisa Levine (Director), Gabriel Miller (Director), and Brittany Kaplan (Editor) / Sweetheart Deal

Outstanding Use of Archival Footage (Archivists, Archival Producers and/or Editor)
James Cude (Editor) / The Little Pageant That Could
Sara Newens (Editor) and Rebecca Kent (Archival Producer) / Racist Trees
David Baker (Editor) and National Geographic Society Archivists Lela Sewell-Williams, Sara Mancho, Renee Braden, Karen Cerka, Kelly Miner / The Wonder And The Worry

Outstanding Cinematography (DP, Camera Operator(s), AC)
Luke Connor (Cinematography), Ben Giesbrecht (Cinematography), Joshua Manyhands (Assistant Camera), Calvin Stimson (Assistant Camera), and Anthony Stengal (Additional Cinematography) / Aitamaako’tamisskap Natosi: Before The Sun
Jonathan Lacocque (Director of Photography) / O Pioneer
George Hupka (Director of Photography), Andrew Manske (Wildlife Cinematography) and Johnny Blerot (Additional Wildlife Cinematography) / Singing Back The Buffalo

Special Honorary Awards

The Native Viewpoint Award – Outstanding Indigenous Community Story Collaboration
Atikamekw Suns (Chloé Leriche, Director and Producer)

The Native Viewpoint Award – Indigenous Film Critic’s Best Overall Selection
WaaPaKe (Jules Koostachin, Director)

Narrative Features Committee Renegade Award
Vera Drew (Writer, Director, and Editor) / The People’s Joker – For bringing her audacious vision of The People’s Joker to life

Narrative Features Committee Authenticity Award
Kelli McNeil-Yellen (Screenwriter and Producer) / Daruma – honoring excellence in authentic representation of disability on screen

Documentary Features Committee Spotlight Award
Emily Sheshkin (Director) and the Silva Family in honor of Jesslyn Silva / JessZilla

The esteemed individuals that make up the nomination committees and juries are as follows:

Nomination Committee

Documentary Features Nomination Committee

Matt Fagerholm (Former Editor, RogerEbert.com, Chicago Film Critics Association)
Soham Gadre (The Film Stage, MUBI Notebook)
Tina Kakadelis (News Editor, Film Obsessive, Editor-in-Chief, Beyond the Cinerama Dome)
Steve Kopian (founder and chief film critic, unseen films)
Shelagh Rowan-Legg (Contributing Editor, Screen Anarchy, Second Sight Films essayist)
Vincent Schilling (founder and editor, Native Viewpoint)
Peter Wong (Beyond Chron, San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle)
Special Thanks for Assistance: Jack Hanley (Blindspotting: A Film Discovery Podcast)

Narrative Features Nomination Committee

Carlos Aguilar (Los Angeles Time, IndieWire, National Society of Film Critics)
Olga Artemyeva (Screen Anarchy)
Max Cea (Esquire, Nothing Bogus)
Kat Hughes (Deputy Editor, The Hollywood News, Online Film Critics Society)
Ankit Jhunjhunwala (Screen Anarchy, The Playlist)
Natalia Keogan (Filmmaker Magazine, Paste Magazine)
Simon Laperrière (Panorama-Cinéma, 24 images)
Vincent Schilling (founder and editor, Native Viewpoint)

Narrative Features Jury

Theodore Collators (Director – Palookaville, Queen of Lapa)
Marie Jamora (Director – What Isn’t There, Queen Sugar)
Frank Mosley (Actor and Director – Quantum Cowboys, The Event)
Cheryl Nichols (Director – Cortez, Keep This Between Us)
Shih-Ching Tsou (Director and Producer – Takeout, The Florida Project)

Documentary Features Jury

Angela H. Brown (Deputy Editor, Slug Magazine)
Joslyn Jensen (Actor and Director – Driftwood, Bad Actor: A Hollywood Ponzi Scheme)
Scott Iwasaki (Arts and Scene Editor, Park Record)
Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine (Director and Actor – Memories of Love Returned, The Chi)
Pete Ohs (Director and Editor – Erupcja, Slave Play. Not A Movie. A Play)