Oscar hopeful Beasts of the Southern Wild and Artifact, actor Jared Leto's documentary — he's credited as Bartholomew Cubbins — about his band 30 Seconds to Mars, are among the five films that have made it to the final round of IFP's Gotham Independent Film Audience Award contest. Beasts, which was directed by Benh Zeitlin, turns out to be the only non-documentary nominated: The other three contenders include Kirby Dick's Invisible War, about rape in the military; Burn, Brenna Sanchez and Tom Putnam's documentary about Detroit firefighters, and Jonathan Kalafer's Once in a Lullaby: The PS 22 Chorus Story, which tells the story of how the fifth-grade chorus at a Staten Island public school came to perform at the 2011 Oscars.
The first round voting took place from October 18 - 31, during which 31 audience award-winning films from the top 50 US and Canadian film festivals were narrowed through online voting to the five films with the highest number of votes. Round two of voting will take place until Nov. 18, and the winner will be announced at the Gotham Awards in New York on Nov. 26. Filmgoers can vote online for their favorite film.
Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter.
Follow Movieline on Twitter.