The 2011 Independent Spirit Awards were handed out a few hours ago and Black Swan won in all four categories it was nominated in including Best Picture, Best Director (Darren Aronofsky), Best Actress (Natalie Portman) and Best Cinematography (Matthew Libatique). Winter’s Bone earned the most nominations at seven and dominated the supporting categories with wins for both Dale Dickey and John Hawkes, of the two only Hawkes earned an Oscar nomination, but he’ll be facing off against both Christian Bale and Geoffrey Rush tomorrow night so I’m not counting on two awards in two days, though his performance in that film is one to remember.
Elsewhere, James Franco won Best Actor for 127 Hours, though he wasn’t facing the stiffest of competition when it comes to most talked about performances of the year as he is the only one of the five nominees to also be nominated for an Oscar. Exit Through the Gift Shop won for Best Documentary and Stuart Blumberg and Lisa Cholodenko (The Kids Are All Right) won for Best Screenplay.
One category I also wanted to point out is Best Foreign Film of which was won by The King’s Speech. Obviously Film Independent looks differently at foreign films than does Oscar as it is also open to English language films, an idea I’ve seen suggested in some Internet circles they believe the Academy should embrace, dropping the world “language” from the Best Foreign Language Film category. I wonder, do you feel the same way? In that case The King’s Speech would likely have been nominated for Best Foreign Film and would perhaps be the front-runner for not only that category, but Best Picture as well. I don’t think it’s a good idea, but I thought I’d float it out there.
And with these winners announced, the Oscar Overture is complete. You can head over there to see all of the films that won in some of the most telling precursor awards heading into tomorrow night’s Oscars.
The one thing I take away from today’s results is that I think all the talk of a potential Annette Bening win over Natalie Portman, while understandable, lost even more steam. If you ask me, Portman’s got it in the bag at this point.
Otherwise, here’s the complete list of winners as well as nominees. See you here tomorrow night for the Oscars, of which I’ll be live-blogging alongside Laremy Legel starting around 3:00 PM PST. Hope you’ll join us.
BEST FEATURE (Award given to the Producer, Executive Producers are not listed)
BEST DIRECTOR
BEST SCREENPLAY
BEST FIRST FEATURE (Award given to the director and producer)
BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY
JOHN CASSAVETES AWARD – Given to the best feature made for under $500,000. Award given to the writer, director, and producer. Executive Producers are not listed
BEST FEMALE LEAD
BEST MALE LEAD
BEST SUPPORTING FEMALE
BEST SUPPORTING MALE
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
BEST DOCUMENTARY (Award given to the director)
BEST FOREIGN FILM (Award given to the director)
ACURA SOMEONE TO WATCH AWARD — The 17th annual Acura Someone to Watch Award recognizes a talented filmmaker of singular vision who has not yet received appropriate recognition. The award includes a $25,000 unrestricted grant funded by Acura.
PIAGET PRODUCERS AWARD — The 14th annual Piaget Producers Award honors emerging producers who, despite highly limited resources demonstrate the creativity, tenacity, and vision required to produce quality, independent films. The award includes a $25,000 unrestricted grant funded by Piaget.
AVEENO TRUER THAN FICTION AWARD — The 16th annual AVEENO Truer Than Fiction Award is presented to an emerging director of non-fiction features who has not yet received significant recognition. The award includes a $25,000 unrestricted grant funded by AVEENO.
ROBERT ALTMAN AWARD – (Given to one film’s director, casting director, and its ensemble cast)
- Please Give
Director: Nicole Holofcener
Casting Director: Jeanne McCarthy
Ensemble Cast: Ann Guilbert, Rebecca Hall, Catherine Keener, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Lois Smith, Sarah Steele
