2021 Cinema Unbound Awards Honorees

The Cinema Unbound Awards is an annual celebration presented by the Northwest Film Center, honoring boundary-breaking multimedia storytellers working at the intersection of art and cinema. This year the awards took place virtually on March 4. 

The Cinema Unbound Awards statement: "We honor artists and nonconformists who are not content to be contained but instead expand the notion of what’s possible. The Cinema Unbound honorees defy expectations and refuse to embrace labels using their creative vision to inspire and push us to look at what is beyond the norm. The Cinema Unbound Awards represents the Portland Art Museum & Northwest Film Center’s embrace of artistic exploration and commitment to equity and inclusion."

This year the Cinema Unbound Awards honored Steve McQueen, Garrett Bradley, Mollye Asher, Gus Van Sant and Alex Bulkley. Presenters of the awards were Chloe Zallo, Guiilermo del Toro, Rajendra Roy, Mollye Asher, Charles Burnett, among others. Event partners of the event were Gucci and Netflix. 

“The Cinema Unbound Awards celebrate those who are not content to be contained,” says Amy Dotson, Northwest Film Center Director and Portland Art Museum Curator of Film & New Media. “We honor these multi-media misfits and nonconformists who expand the notion of what’s possible; these unbound storytellers who defy expectation by refusing to embrace what is for what might be. They inspire us not just by simply coloring outside the lines, but by redrawing the lines entirely, creating a more interesting, inclusive and inspiring space where cinema and art collide.”

Alex Bulkley. Courtesy: Cinema Unbound Awards

"The Cinema Unbound Award is a particular and personal honor because it truly reflects that same spirit that was taught to me to instill in the work that I do."

Guillermo del Toro said: "Normally the role of producer comes with this preconception that the producer has to be tough, has to be rough, has to be brutal. But Alex is nothing but gentle, and thoughtful, and a champion of the arts and a champion of the artist. He is a perfect example of keeping cinema unbound from reality while bound to reality.”

Garret Bradley. Courtesy: Cinema Unbound Awards
"I see it really as a celebration of the gray area of intersectionality of a place where practice, and function, and ideas, geographies, spaces, things that might seem to even be in contradiction with one another can be in dialogue, to help us gain new understandings of ourselves and to pave the path for a more transparent and just and loving world.”

Mollye Asher. Courtesy: Cinema Unbound Awards
"As an indie producer, you often have to think outside the box because the industry isn't constructed to fit anything other than what's been done before. But when you're working with partners like Chloe and Josh, that necessity to think outside of the box becomes a choice."

Chloe Zhao, who recently won for Best Director for Nomadland a Golden Globe Award and a Critics Choice Award, said: "It's in those darkest times that I think the character of a great producer really shows. And Mollye has shown that over and over and over in the times I've worked with her."

Steve McQueen. Courtesy: Cinema Unbound Awards

"I've always tried to look at places where maybe it would be uncomfortable, but having to go there, because that's what we as artists do. We try to, sort of get driven on to reflect who we are as human beings.”

Gus Van Sant. Courtesy: Cinema Unbound Awards.

For more on the awards, visit: https://cinemaunbound.org/.