'The Assistant' Produced by Professor James Schamus Nominated for 2020 Gotham Award
The Assistant, produced by Professor James Schamus was nominated for Best Feature at The Gotham Awards. Director Kitty Green’s urgent real-time thriller marks the first narrative depiction of life under the clench of Harvey Weinstein. The film is a gallingly low-key look at gender dynamics in the workplace that began as an exposé of sexual misconduct on college campuses and morphed into a commentary on The Weinstein scandal.
In The Assistant, a fragile young woman working for him is tasked with juggling the minutiae of the executive’s life, arranging a never-ending stream of airplane trips, staving off angry callers, and picking up the trash left in his wake.
The IFP Gotham Awards, selected by distinguished juries and presented in New York City, the home of independent film, are the first honors of the film awards season. This public showcase honors the filmmaking community, expands the audience for independent films, and supports the work that IFP does behind the scenes throughout the year to bring such films to fruition.
In a review of the film, Indiewire said that the film was built on “immaculate research into the working conditions under Weinstein and how they affected many of the young women on its payroll. The Assistant adopts such a gradual pace that it sometimes works against the stunning performance at its center, but there’s no doubting the hypnotic power of a movie that digs inside Weinstein’s harrowing reign and observes the mechanics that allowed it to last so long. A quiet work with major ambitions, The Assistant is a significant cultural statement in cinematic form.”
James Schamus is an award-winning screenwriter (The Ice Storm), producer (Brokeback Mountain), director (Indignation), and former CEO of Focus Features, the motion picture production, financing, and worldwide distribution company whose films have included Moonrise Kingdom, Milk, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Kids are Alright, The Pianist, Coraline, and Dallas Buyers Club. He is the author of Carl Theodor Dreyer's Gertrud: The Moving Word, published by the University of Washington Press. He earned his BA, MA, and PhD in English from the University of California, Berkeley. His directorial debut, an adaptation of Philip Roth's Indignation, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Recent producing and executive producing credits include Casting JonBenet, A Prayer Before Dawn, Adam, and The Assistant.
Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP) champions the future of storytelling by connecting artists with essential resources at all stages of development and distribution and represents a network of 10,000 storytellers with 350 new feature and documentary works each year. During its 42-year history, IFP has supported over 12,000 projects and offered resources to more than 20,000 filmmakers.