“Gimme The Loot” helmer gets 'Someone to Watch' Spirit Award

PanARMENIAN.Net - Adam Leon, director of Gimme The Loot, has been awarded Film Independent’s Someone to Watch Award, which “recognizes a talented filmmaker of singular vision who has not yet received appropriate recognition” and carries with it a $25,000 unrestricted grant. The finalists for the award included Rebecca Thomas for Electrick Children and David Fenster for Pincus, The Hollywood Reporter said.

The award was one of four Spirit Awards filmmaker grants that Film Independent announced at its annual Spirit Awards Nominees Brunch, hosted by Salma Hayek and Jeremy Renner.

Peter Nicks, director of The Waiting Room, received the Stella Artois Truer Than Fiction Award presented to an emerging director of non-fiction and including another $25,000 grant. Jason Tippet and Elizabeth Mims for Only The Young and Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel for Leviathan were also finalists for the award.

Mynette Louie received the Piaget Producers Award, which honors emerging producers who, despite highly limited resources demonstrate the creativity, tenacity and vision required to produce quality, independent films and includes a $25,000 grant. Finalists were Derrick Tseng and Alicia Van Couvering.

Laura Colella received the third annual Jameson FIND Your Audience Award for Breakfast With Curtis, which premiered at the 2012 Los Angeles Film Festival. The other finalists were Sara Lamm, Mary Wigmore, Kate Roughan and Zachary Mortensen for Birth Story: Ina May Gaskin And The Farm Midwives and Jeremy Kipp Walker and John Mitchell for History of Future Folk.

Winners in the remaining Spirit Award categories will be revealed at the 2013 Film Independent Spirit Awards, held in a tent at Santa Monica beach on Feb. 23 and broadcast later that evening on IFC.