The Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP) announced today that two-time Academy Award and six-time Golden Globe winning actor Dustin Hoffman will receive the Actor Tribute and Academy Award nominated director Sofia Coppola will receive the Director Tribute at the 2017 IFP Gotham Awards. Coppola and Hoffman join Nicole Kidman and Ed Lachmann who will also be honored that night.
The first awards show of the season, the IFP Gotham Awards is one of the leading honors for independent film and media, providing critical early recognition to groundbreaking independent films and their writers, directors, producers, and actors with ten competitive awards categories. The IFP Gotham Awards also honors selected film industry
icons as tributes each year. The ceremony will be held on Monday, November 27, 2017, in New York.
“We are thrilled to present Dustin Hoffman with the Actor Tribute. Starting with his breakthrough role in the timeless classic The Graduate to his highly praised turn in his upcoming film, The Meyerowitz Stories, Dustin’s wide range of roles – often portraying antiheroes or the marginalized – and the creative choices he has embodied in these complex characters, has firmly placed him amongst the most compelling actors to have graced the screen,” said Joana Vicente, Executive Director of IFP and the Made in NY Media Center.
“We are equally delighted to present Sofia with the Director Tribute this year. Sofia continues to shatter the glass ‘lens’ in our industry, being only the second woman in Cannes history to win Best Director. From the indelible impression her films have on audiences, to her singular vision and aesthetic, which underscore her subtle commentary on society
and culture, Sofia has made a lasting contribution to the art of film.”
Hoffman’s work includes playing Benjamin Braddock in Mike Nichols’ The Graduate, for which he was nominated for his first Academy Award® for Best Actor. Since then, he has gone on to win two Academy Awards for Kramer vs. Kramer and Rain Man. In 1997, he was awarded the Golden Globe’s esteemed Cecil B. DeMille Award, and an Honorary César Medal at
the 2009 César Awards. Hoffman was also recognized at the 2012 Kennedy Center Honors.
Sofia Coppola’s unique signature as a filmmaker was showcased in her directional debut, the exquisitely executed The Virgin Suicides, which she adapted from Pulitzer Prize-winner Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel of the same name. Coppola won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Coppola’s most recent film is the atmospheric thriller, The Beguiled, starring Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning and Colin Farrell. Coppola made history this year as only the second woman to win the Best Director prize at the Cannes Film Festival for The Beguiled, and the first woman to win since 1961.
This year, the IFP Gotham Audience Award (the only non-juried category) will be open to voting by IFP Members worldwide as a benefit of membership. Voting will take place online in November. Nominees will be announced on October 19th and winners will be honored at the star-studded ceremony at Cipriani Wall Street on November 27th.
