What an odd way to open this year's awards season: Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life and Mike Mills's Beginners have tied for Best Feature at Monday night's Gotham Independent Film Awards, though I suppose one could say that Beginners came out of the evening with a slight edge in that it's also taken the Best Ensemble prize. The other films nominated for Best Feature were Jeff Nichols's Take Shelter, Alexander Payne's The Descendants and Kelly Reichardt's Meek's Cutoff.
Best Ensemble Performance: Beginners (Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer, Mélanie Laurent, Goran Visnjic, Kai Lennox, Mary Page Keller, Keegan Boos). Also nominated: The Descendants (George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Beau Bridges, Robert Forster, Judy Greer, Matthew Lillard, Nick Krause, Amara Miller, Mary Birdsong, Rob Huebel), Margin Call (Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto, Penn Badgley, Simon Baker, Mary McDonnell, Demi Moore, Stanley Tucci, Aasif Mandvi), Martha Marcy May Marlene (Elizabeth Olsen, Christopher Abbott, Brady Corbet, Hugh Dancy, Maria Dizzia, Julia Garner, John Hawkes, Louisa Krause, Sarah Paulson) and Take Shelter (Michael Shannon, Jessica Chastain, Tova Stewart, Shea Whigham, Katy Mixon, Kathy Baker, Ray McKinnon, Lisagay Hamilton, Robert Longstreet).
And the other winners and nominees:
Best Documentary: Katie Galloway and Kelly Duane de la Vega's Better This World. Also nominated: Danfung Dennis's Hell and Back Again, Steve James's The Interrupters, Richard Press's Bill Cunningham New York and C Scott Willis's The Woodmans.
Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You: Blue Hadaegh and Grover Babcock's Scenes of a Crime. Nominated: Mark Jackson's Without, Madeleine Olnek's Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same, Sophia Takal's Green and Eric Strauss and Daniele Anastasion's The Redemption of General Butt Naked.
Breakthrough Director: Dee Rees for Pariah. Nominated: Mike Cahill for Another Earth, Sean Durkin for Martha Marcy May Marlene, Vera Farmiga for Higher Ground, Evan Glodell for Bellflower and
Breakthrough Actor: Felicity Jones for Like Crazy. Nominated: Elizabeth Olsen for Martha Marcy May Marlene, Harmony Santana for Gun Hill Road, Shailene Woodley for The Descendants and Jacob Wysocki for Terri.
For news and tips throughout the day every day, follow @thedailyMUBI on Twitter and/or the RSS feed.