Do we really need another award show? Michael Tully, filmmaker (Ping Pong Summer, Septien) and editor of Hammer to Nail, and Eric Lavallée, founder of Ioncinema, can assure you we do. Tully and Lavallée have partnered to announce the creation of the American Independent Film Awards (AIFAs), a soon-to-be annual celebration of “a distinctive category of micro-budget films.”

Says Tully, “There are way too many awards shows as it is, and yet Eric and I have become frustrated with the way truly excellent work is marginalized every year simply because it doesn’t have the money to play with the big boys. We feel that the time has come for us to give birth to an annual celebration of low-budget filmmaking  in which the decisions aren’t dictated by dollars; they’re driven by our love for these movies — plain and simple.”

The AIFAs will function as a unique forum, in which films that are perhaps otherwise overlooked by independent awards bodies like the Spirits and Gothams, will have their moment in the spotlight. “In doing so,” offered Tully and Lavallée in a press release, “[We aim] to forge stronger ties within this community of filmmakers as well as with the viewing public.”

The inaugural awards ceremony is set to take place during the first quarter of 2015.