2009 PROGIE NOMINATIONS FOR BEST PROGRESSIVE FILMS & ARTISTS

The Awards Honor Outstanding Movies and Artists of Conscience and Consciousness

Los Angeles, Feb. 1, 2010 – The James Agee Cinema Circle is announcing the third annual “Progie” nominations for Best Progressive Films and Filmmakers in 2009.

The James Agee Cinema Circle is a new international, independent umbrella group of lefty film critics, reviewers, scholars and historians dedicated to raising public awareness about films dealing with political, social and cultural issues such as: Human rights, workers’ struggles, women’s rights, environmentalism, ethnic rights, free speech, gay rights, civil liberties, immigrant rights, people’s activism and peace. The JACC annually presents the Progies to the year’s Best Progressive studio features, indies, documentaries and artists. The Progies are the “un-Oscar”, the “people’s alternative Academy Awards,” honoring movies and talents of conscience and consciousness.

Among the 2009 Progie nominees are: Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela in Clint Eastwood’s
Invictus; Michael Moore’s anti-corporate Capitalism, A Love Story; Woody Harrelson and the antiwar The Messenger; George Clooney and the unemployment dramedy Up in the Air; The Baader-Meinhoff Complex, about German ultra-left terrorists; Burma VJ, an underground doc about a Buddhist monk uprising; the antiwar satire In the Loop starring James Gandolfini and Mimi Kennedy; Quentin Tarantino’s anti-Nazi Inglourious Basterds; Woody Allen’s secular humanist, pro-gay comedy Whatever Works starring Larry David; the pro-gay, anti-abuse inner city drama Precious; and James Cameron’s pro-indigenous, anti-colonial Avatar. The full list of nominees follows; the
Progie winners will be announced by March 1.

Up to five nominees are eligible in each category. Due to ties, some categories have more than five nominations. Each category is named after a great cinema artist or film that made a contribution to movies that enlighten, as well as entertain audiences.

Ed Rampell, author of Progressive Hollywood, A People’s Film History of the United States, and other members
of the James Agee Cinema Circle are available for comment and interviews. 

2009 PROGIE NOMINATIONS FOR BEST PROGRESSIVE FILMS & ARTISTS

1. THE TRUMBO:
The Progie Award for BEST PROGRESSIVE PICTURE is named after Oscar-winning screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, a member of the Hollywood Ten, who was imprisoned for his beliefs and refusing to inform. Trumbo helped break the Blacklist when he received screen credit for “Spartacus” and “Exodus” in 1960.

Capitalism, A Love Story

Avatar

Invictus

The Messenger

American Violet

2. THE GARFIELD:
The Progie Award for BEST ACTOR in a progressive picture is named after John Garfield, who rose from the proletarian theatre to star in progressive pictures such as “Gentleman's Agreement” and “Force of Evil,” only to run afoul of the Hollywood Blacklist.

Ben Foster, The Messenger

Morgan Freeman, Invictus

Woody Harrelson, The Messenger

George Clooney, Up in the Air

Colin Firth, A Single Man 

3. KAREN MORLEY AWARD: The Progie Award for BEST ACTRESS in a progressive picture is named for Karen Morley, co-star of 1932’s “Scarface” and 1934’s “Our Daily Bread.” 

Melanie Laurent, Inglourious Basterds

Gabourey Sidibe, Precious

Sophie Okenedo, Skin

Zoe Saldena, Avatar

Beharie, American Violet

Renee Zellweger, My One And Only

Carey Mulligan, An Education

4. THE RENOIR:
The Progie Award for BEST ANTI-WAR FILM is named after the great French filmmaker Jean Renoir, who directed the 1937 anti-militarism masterpiece “Grand Illusion.”

The Messenger

Lebanon

Avatar

The White Ribbon

5. THE GILLO:
The Progie Award for BEST PROGRESSIVE FOREIGN FILM is named after the Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo, who lensed the 1960s classics “The Battle of Algiers” and “Burn!”

The Wedding Song

The Baader-Meinhoff Complex

Lemon Tree

Sin Nombre

6. THE DZIGA:
The Progie Award for BEST PROGRESSIVE DOCUMENTARY is named after the Soviet filmmaker Dziga Vertov, who directed 1920s nonfiction films such as the “Kino Pravda” (“Film Truth”) series and “The Man With the Movie Camera.”

American Casino

Capitalism, A Love Story

The Cove

Burma VJ

The End of Poverty?

Food Inc. 

Sweet Crude

Good Hair

The Most Dangerous Man In America, Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers

7. LA PASSIONARA AWARD: The Progie Award for MOST POSITIVE FEMALE SCREEN IMAGE is named after Dolores Ibarruri, the fiery leader of the Spanish Republic who appeared in documentaries such as Joris Ivens’ “The Spanish Earth.” 

Inglourious Basterds

The Baader-Meinhoff Complex

Amreeka

The White Ribbon

Abbie Cornish,
Bright Star

Amy Adams, Sunshine Cleaning

8. OUR DAILY BREAD AWARD: The Progie Award for the MOST POSITIVE AND INSPIRING WORKING CLASS SCREEN IMAGE.

Capitalism, A Love Story

Amreeka

Sunshine Cleaning

9. THE ROBESON:
The Progie Award for the BEST PORTRAYAL OF PEOPLE OF COLOR that shatters cinema stereotypes, in light of their historically demeaning depictions onscreen. It is named after courageous performing legend, Paul Robeson, who starred in 1936’s “Song of Freedom” and 1940’s “The Proud Valley,” and narrated 1942’s “Native Land.”

Precious

American Violet

Morgan Freeman, Invictus

Amreeka

Avatar

10. THE SERGEI:
The Progie Award for LIFETIME PROGRESSIVE ACHIEVEMENT ON- OR OFFSCREEN is named after Sergei Eisenstein, the Soviet director of masterpieces such as “Potemkin” and “10 Days That Shook the World.”

Ken Loach

Emma Thompson

11. THE TOMAS GUTIERREZ ALEA AWARD: The Progie Award for BEST DEPICTION OF A MASS POPULAR UPRISING OR REVOLUTIONARY TRANSFORMATION is named after the legendary Cuban filmmaker who directed 1968’s “Memories of Underdevelopment” and 1994’s “Strawberry and Chocolate.”

Avatar

Burma VJ

The Baader-Meinhoff Complex

12. THE BUNUEL:
The Progie Award for the MOST SLYLY SUBVERSIVE SATIRICAL CINEMATIC FILM in terms of form, style and content is named after Luis Bunuel, the Spanish surrealist who directed 1929’s “The Andalusian Dog,” 1967’s “Belle de Jour” and 1972’s “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie.”

The Men Who Stare At Goats

Up in the Air

The
Informant!

In the Loop

Whatever Works

A Serious Man

Drag Me To Hell

13. THE PASOLINI:
The Progie Award for BEST PRO-GAY RIGHTS film is named after Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini, who directed 1964's “The Gospel According to St. Matthew” and “The Decameron” and “The Canterbury Tales” in the 1970s.

Outrage

A Single Man

14. THE LAWSON:
The Progie Award for BEST ANTI-FASCIST FILM is named after John Howard Lawson, screenwriter of 1938’s anti-Franco “Blockade” and the 1940s anti-Nazi films “Four Sons,” “Action in the North Atlantic,” “Sahara” and “Counter-Attack,” and one of the Hollywood Ten.

The Baader-Meinhoff Complex

Inglourious Basterds

White
Ribbon

Avatar

ELIA KAZAN HALL
OF SHAME 2009: Citations for the worst anti-working class and right wing movies of the year is named after director Elia Kazan, who was Hollywood’s
“King Rat.” Kazan not only informed on alleged radicals to the House Un-American Activities Committee, he took out a New York Times ad justifying his self-serving treachery.

Jon Voight for participating in Tea Bagger anti-healthcare reform rallies. He should return his Oscar for Coming Home!

Sherlock Holmes for what appears to be disgraceful anti-Semitism and ripping off the brand name previously created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Quentin Tarantino, Inglorious Basterds - Turning the Holocaust into an obscene ahistoric movie-geek action film, with his testosterone-driven murderous Jews.

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