Domingo wins Gotham prize as Oscars race heats up

US actor Colman Domingo has won the top acting prize at the 2024 Gotham Awards, as the Oscars race continues to heat up.

The star won best actor for his performance in Sing Sing, a powerful film about an educational performing arts programme in a New York prison.

There was a surprise but welcome winner in the top category, best feature, which went to A Different Man, a thought-provoking movie about a man who has a disfiguring facial condition and drastically changes his appearance.

The Gothams are one of the few film awards ceremonies to have merged their gendered acting categories, and all of this year’s winners were men.

The Gotham Awards, held in New York, celebrate independent films. The event is not as big or influential as some others in awards season, but they can indicate early support for certain films in the race.

The next big milestone in the awards calendar will be the announcement of the Golden Globe nominations on Monday (9 December).

The Oscars race is considered to be wide open this year, with several strong contenders but no clear frontrunner to win best picture as things stand.

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Sing Sing tells the real-life story of a man, known as Divine G, who has been imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit, and finds purpose by acting in a theatre group.

The film premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2023, but its release was delayed until this summer to give it some distance from Rustin, another film starring Domingo which was in contention for awards last year.

Accepting his Gotham prize, Domingo said: “I’m just very grateful for this, to be seen in this way, to do the work that my heart desires, and my soul desires, making work that I truly believe can make a difference in this world.”

He thanked the films director, writer and producer “for inviting me to bring my whole self, to help tell the story of these men that I care so deeply about”.

“They found art to be the parachute that can save them, and they poured themselves into it, and it poured back into them.”

Clarence Maclin, a former inmate of Sing Sing who portrays himself in the film, won best supporting actor

Domingo’s previous acting credits include One Night in Miami, If Beale Street Could Talk, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and The Color Purple.

His co-star Clarence Maclin, a former real-life inmate of Sing Sing prison who portrays a version of himself in the film, was named best supporting actor.

The top prize was won by A Different Man, a superb and original film about an aspiring actor who has neurofibromatosis, a disfiguring facial condition.

He undergoes a radical medical procedure to drastically transform his appearance, but then begins to grapple with a loss of identity, and is perturbed after meeting a man with a similar condition who is happy and fulfilled within his own body.

A Different Man held off competition from films including Anora and Babygirl, both of which could feature prominently in the Oscars race.

Director Aaron Schimberg said he was shocked to collect the award “considering the other nominees”.

Other attendees at the Gothams included Hollywood stars Demi Moore, Nicole Kidman, Jessica Chastain, Adrian Brody, Pamela Anderson, Zoe Kravitz and Saoirse Ronan.

Filmmaker RaMell Ross (left) and actor Brandon Wilson won the best director and breakthrough performer awards for Nickel Boys