After several years of increasing overlap with the Academy Awards, the Independent Film Spirit Awards should supply a counterpoint to the Oscars at its annual ceremony on Saturday.
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The spotlight on diversity at the Spirit Awards comes amid a furor in Hollywood over the 20 all-white acting nominees for this year’s Oscars, fueling the #OscarsSoWhite debate.
Film Independent, the nonprofit arts organization that produced the Spirit Awards, the LA Film Festival and Film Independent at LACMA, handed out top honors to Spotlight, Beasts of No Nation and Room at this afternoon’s 31st Film Independent Spirit Awards. “You better get out there and put them in your next movie”.
Tom McCarthy’s newspaper drama Spotlight is expected to be the big victor, where it will compete without the competition of larger budget Oscar favourites such as Leonardo DiCaprio’s The Revenant.
One of the loudest cheers went to transgender actress Mya Taylor, who won best supporting female for drawing on her own experiences to portray a trans sex worker in “Tangerine”.
Kate McKinnon (“Saturday Night Live”) and comedian Kumail Nanjiani hosted the ceremony, which was broadcast live on IFC.
The Oscars have made a decision to pull a hardcore snub on Cary Fukunaga’s Beasts of no Nation. “That was so good”, Mara said to her director boyfriend Charlie McDowell. Emma Donoghue, the novelist-turned-screenwriter, also won for best adapted screenplay for the film.
The only Oscar acting favorite likely to win Saturday, too, is Brie Larson from “The Room”. But McCarthy took the opportunity to celebrate the movie’s distinction as an independent film, released by indie distributor Open Road.
“We need companies like this right now that will step up when other studios won’t tell stories like this”, he said.
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Son of Saul was voted Best International Film and The Diary of a Teenage Girl was declared Best First Feature. But Heller marked her claim on Powley. “We made this film in nine days at my mom’s house and it stars my aunt”.
