A beautiful story about love and loss – Past Lives took the cake for best feature at the Gotham Awards in New York. Meanwhile, Charles Melton won for his supporting performance in Todd Haynes’ May December and Lily Gladstone for her lead performance in The Unknown Country.

Writer-director Celine Song took to the stage to accept the award for best feature saying, “Thank you, Gotham, for this award. It’s such an honour. It really means the world to receive it with my debut set in New York City, a city I live in and love deeply.” She thanked her producers at A24, along with her cast and crew. Song was joined on stage by two of the Past Lives stars, Greta Lee and John Magaro.

Robert De Niro claimed that his Gotham Awards speech was censored during the award ceremony. He claimed anti-Trump comments were removed without notice.

“I’m going to go back. I’m sorry. Okay, there was a mistake in this. I’ll keep going. Just keep scrolling,” De Niro said early on in his speech.

“I just want to say one thing,” he continued. “The beginning of my speech was edited, cut out, and I didn’t know about it. And I want to read it. History isn’t history anymore. Truth is not truth. Even facts are being replaced by alternative facts, and driven by conspiracy theories and ugliness."

“In Florida, young students are taught that slaves developed skills that could be applied for their personal benefit,” De Niro continued. “The entertainment industry isn’t immune to this festering disease. The Duke, John Wayne, famously said of Native Americans, ‘I don’t feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them. There were great numbers of people who needed new land and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.'”

 

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“Lying has become just another tool in the charlatan’s arsenal. The former President lied to us more than 30,000 times during his four years in office. And he’s keeping up the pace in his current campaign of retribution. But with all his lies, he can’t hide his soul. He attacks the weak, destroys the gifts of nature and shows disrespect, for example, by using ‘Pocahontas’ as a slur. Filmmakers, on the other hand, strive — this is where I came in and I saw that they edited all that,” he said.

“So I’m going to say these things but to Apple and thank them all that,” De Niro said as he wrapped the speech. “Gotham, blah blah blah, but I don’t feel like thanking them at all for what they did. How dare they do that, actually. But now I will go to: Accepting the award for ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’…”

See the full list of Gotham Award winners below:

Best Feature:  

Past Lives
Celine Song, director; David Hinojosa, Pamela Koffler, Christine Vachon, producers (A24)

Outstanding Lead Performance:

Lily Gladstone
The Unknown Country (Music Box Films)

Outstanding Supporting Performance:

Charles Melton
May December (Netflix)

Breakthrough Director Award:

A.V. Rockwell
A Thousand and One (Focus Features)

Breakthrough Series – Over 40 minutes:

A Small Light
Tony Phelan, Joan Rater, creator; Susanna Fogel, William Harper, Avi Nir, Tony Phelan, Joan Rater, Lisa Roos, Alon Shtruzman, Peter Traugott, executive producers (National Geographic)

Breakthrough Series – Under 40 minutes:

Beef
Lee Sung Jin, creator; Ravi Nandan, Alli Reich, Jake Schreier, Ali Wong, Steven Yeun, executive producers (Netflix)

Outstanding Performance in a New Series:

Ali Wong
Beef (Netflix)

Best Documentary Feature:

Four Daughters
Kaouther Ben Hania, director; Nadim Cheikhrouha, producer (Kino Lorber)

Best International Feature:

Anatomy of a Fall
Justine Triet, director; Marie-Ange Luciani, David Thion, producers (Neon)

Best Screenplay:

Anatomy of a Fall
Justine Triet, Arthur Harari (Neon)