Beauty is Embarrassing: Gotham Independent Film Audience Award Contender

IFP and Festival Genius are in the midst of the first round of voting for their 3rd annual Audience Award for the 22nd Gotham Independent Film Awards. This award celebrates audience award winners from across the Top 50 U.S. and Canadian film festivals. 

For those who hit the festival circuit this year, it is no secret that there were a bevy of fantastic independent films circulating the various festivals. From enlightening documentaries to heartwarming features, filmmakers had audiences laughing, crying, and reminiscing along with their characters on screen. None more so than Neil Berkeley’s Beauty is Embarrassing, which is up for the Gotham Independent Film Awards. The ITVS-funded film, which is coming to Independent Lens this season, is a funny, irreverent, and inspiring documentary featuring the life and times of one of America’s most idiosyncratic artists, Wayne White. 

The film chronicles the vaulted highs and crushing lows of the Tennessean commercial artist, who got his big break when he helped create the marvelously unhinged children's show Pee-Wee's Playhouse. His off-kilter style and self-deprecating sense of humor offer a peak into an imagination that refuses to grow up. The first round of voting for the Audience Award is well underway, with the winner to be announced at the 22^nd Gotham Independent Film Awards on November 26^th, 2012.