Congratulations to AJ Schnack, Thom Powers and all of the winners and nominees on what seems to have been an exceptional night at the IFC Center. As a Nominating Programmer for the First Annual Cinema Eye Awards shortlist and having voted for the awards, I am proud to have been a small part of what I think was an important process to bring proper recognition to the field of non-fiction filmmaking. I truly hope AJ and Thom will invite me to participate again next year as I was deeply honored to have been included and very much enjoyed being involved. I only wish my obligations in Florida had not kept me from attending the ceremony.

I am going to stay quiet on the winners and losers (except to say that I was very surprised in several categories) because for me, all of the films on the short list were exceptional and deserved to be recognized. I think these awards are a great idea and I can't wait to see how the process changes and things develop in the coming years. Regardless, this is a very exciting (and seemingly very well executed) first step and again, I couldn't be more proud and honored to have been involved. Congratulations and I look forward to reading the thoughts and reactions of the film community to the awards in the coming days...

You were missed Tom. It was a great night