AceShowbiz -

Presenting a story of an unlikely friendship between an inner-city junior high school teacher and one of his students, "Half Nelson" scored big yesterday, November 29 at the 16th annual Gotham Awards which took place at Pier 60 on the Chelsea Piers.

The ThinkFilm production took home three awards altogether for winning the categories of Best Feature, Breakthrough Director for Ryan Fleck, and Breakthrough Actor for actress Shareeka Epps.

In the meantime, Paramount Vantage's $25 million "Babel" received the Best Ensemble Cast Award also the Breakthrough Actor Award for Rinko Kikuchi while Steve Barron's immigrant drama "Choking Man" earned the Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You Award, which is designated for pictures without theatrical distribution.

As for the Best Documentary, James Longley's Oscar-shortlisted "Iraq in Fragments" gloriously came out to gain the title, beating out four other competitors of "Deliver Us from Evil", "Following Sean", "An Inconvenient Truth", and "Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple."