Last night’s IFP’s Gotham Awards saw the presentation of the first-ever Festival Genius Audience Award.  The five nominees for the award were determined by over 12,000 votes from audiences around the country.

[The award was created by Slated, the company I started last year with a few friends, and it’s named after our Festival Genius technology, which operates the online program guides for film festivals.  We also recently released a free companion iPhone app you can get here.  I previously posted about Slated, first here and then here.]

I’m happy to report that the winner of last night’s Festival Genius award is Waiting for Superman, Davis Guggenheim’s highly acclaimed documentary on American’s public-education system.  It’s a terrific film and a fantastic start for a new award.

It seems only appropriate to to close with Mr. Wilder:  “An audience is never wrong.  An individual member of it may be an imbecile, but a thousand imbeciles together in the dark — that is critical genius.”