Even though the meaning of "independent film" has been pretty bastardized over the years, there's still one place where a movie made for $50,000 on your parent's credit card can get the credit it deserves. The Gotham Independent Film Awards have rewarded some large indies in the past (Into the Wild, The Squid and the Whale), but they were also some of the first to recognize out-of-nowhere surprises like Half-Nelson and Ballast.

If you want to be one of those micro indies that make it, now is the time to start submitting your film for awards eligibility. They're accepting submissions in five categories: Best Feature, Best Documentary, Breakthrough Actor, Breakthrough Director and Best Ensemble Cast. You can make submissions until September 21st.

Check out all the information you need to know in this excerpt from the press release below. We'll be covering the awards as they happen in December, in the thick of awards season when we'll probably be happy to pay attention to some smaller movies that earned the hype.

New York, NY (July 22, 2009) – IFP, the nation’s oldest and largest organization of independent filmmakers, today announced that the 19th Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards™ will return for the second year to Cipriani Wall Street in New York City, on Tuesday, December 1st . Additionally, the group is now accepting submissions for five of its six competitive categories, including: Best Feature, Best Documentary, Breakthrough Actor, Breakthrough Director and Best Ensemble Performance. Consideration for the sixth competitive award, Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You®, is by invitation-only.

Nominees for the competitive awards are determined by Nominating Committees comprised of film critics, festival programmers and others not directly engaged in the production and distribution of films. Evaluation is based on artistic merit for feature films made with an economy of means and distributed independently.

Submissions are now being accepted in five of the six competitive categories, including: Best Feature, Best Documentary, Breakthrough Actor, Breakthrough Director and Best Ensemble Cast. Applications are available at http://gotham.ifp.org. The deadline for submissions is 5pm EST on Monday, September 21st, 2009.

Nominees and the recipient for the Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You® award are determined by the editors of Filmmaker magazine (a publication of IFP) and a programmer from The Museum of Modern Art. For the fourth year, IFP will again partner with MoMA to present public screenings of all films nominated for this award. Screenings will be held at the Museum November 19th through November 22nd. The Best Film Not Playing at a Theatre Near You® showcases films which have achieved critical acclaim from the festival circuit, but have not yet been released theatrically by a distributor.

The timeline for announcements of the Gotham Independent Film Awards™

* Tribute Honorees will be announced the week of September 21st, 2009
* Nominees for competitive awards will be announced on Monday, October 19th, 2009
* Recipients of competitive awards will be announced live at the ceremony on Tuesday, December 1st, 2009