Sean Baker’s “Anora” won the best film, the best director and best actor of Mikey Madison at the Independent Spirit awards on Saturday in what could be a previous view of the Oscars next Sunday: the film about a sex worker from Brooklyn and his whirlwind with a Russian oligarch are emerged in recent weeks as a leader of the awards season.
The Spirit Awards, held at a beach tent in Santa Monica, California, are the most irreverent sister of the Academy Awards, celebrating the best in independent cinema and television.
Host Aidy Bryant called “the third or fourth largest Hollywood night.”
By accepting the address prize, Baker spoke passionately about the difficulty of making independent films in an industry that can no longer finance more risky films. He said that the indies are in danger of becoming call card films, movies made only as a means to be hired for larger projects.
“The system has to change because this is simply unsustainable,” Baker told enthusiastic applause. “We should not be surviving.”
The best film competition of “Anora” included the psychological horror of Jane Schoenbrun “I Sea The TV Glow”, the adaptation of Ramell Ross of the “Nickel Boys” by Colson Whitehead, Greg Kwedar’s imprisonment drama “Sing Sing” and the Horror of the body of Coralie Fargeat “The Substance”.
This year they had several other possible Oscar winners celebrating. Kieran Culkin, considered a favorite of the Oscar, won the support performance award for “true pain.” Its director, co -star and writer Jesse Eisenberg won the best script for the film about two cousins that embark on a holocaust tour in Poland.
Culkin was not there to accept, his victory was also lost in Bafta last weekend to serve a family member, but others Oscar nominated for Madison and Demi Moore were.
Madison won the Superior Action Award on Moore at the BAFTA last weekend, and stopped on Saturday for Moore’s Pilaf dog on the way to the stage. The categories of action for the Spirit awards are gender neutrals and include 10 points each, which means that Madison and Moore faced Oscar nominated as Colman Domingo (“Sing Sing”) and Sebastian Stan (“The Amprentice”) .
The documentary award was for “No Other Land”, the praised film of a Palestinian-Israeli collective on the destruction of an village in the West Bank that has no distribution. He is also a strong Oscar contender in a competitive category. The filmmakers did not attend to accept the prize.
“Flow”, the lively animated film without words, won the best international film. In the Oscars, he is competing in the international film category and animation.
While the winners of the Spirit award do not always synchronize with the academy, they can often reflect a growing consensus as in the year “everything everywhere at the same time.” The awards limit the eligibility to productions with budgets of $ 30 million or less, which means that the most expensive Oscars like “Wicked” and “Dune: Part two” were not in the race.
Sean Wang accepted the best first feature and the best first script awards for “Dìdi”. He said it was special to share the stage with one of his stars, Joan Chen, who was also nominated for the same award for 25 years for “Xiu Xiu: The Send Down Girl”.
The Netflix phenomenon “Baby Reindeer” also won several awards, for actors Richard Gadd, Jessica Gunning and Nava Mau.
Mau, who is trans, spoke about the importance of the actors who join “as we advance in this next chapter.”
“We don’t know what will happen, but we do know our power,” Mau said. “We are the people and our work is everything.”
Other television winners included “Shōgun”, for the best new series of scripts, and “How to Die Alone”, for Best Ensemble.
The creator of “How to die alone” and Estrella Natasha Rothwell was emotional while accepting the award of the whole. The program was recently canceled after its first season.
Rothwell said it was “a show about the need to feel seen, of being valued as you are.”
“For black stories, visibility is not a privilege: it is a necessity,” Rothwell said. “We deserve to occupy the space, be complex, be hilarious and completely human.”
The generally cheerful show took a moment to recognize the impact of forest fires in Los Angeles. Bryant made a plea to anyone who saw the program, at the audience or in the live transmission of YouTube, to help rebuild the, said a QR code that appeared in the live broadcast to make donations to the filmmaker’s background of the filmmaker of Independent emergency of the film, providing subsidies to Alumni. affected by forest fires.
The program also paid tribute to independent film president Josh Welsh, who died earlier this year at age 62. Welsh had colon cancer.
Bryant said in his opening that it had been a “great year for cinema and a bad year for human life.” The “Saturday Night Live” student began the event with some of the nominees, such as Emma Stone.
“Emma was a producer in four nominated projects tonight,” Bryant said. “But even more important, his hair is short now.”
Stone also appeared prominently in Eisenberg’s speech, when he collected the best script prize for “true pain.” Since they met on the set of “Zombieland” in 2009, she said, she has supported her writing despite being “the most famous person I know” and produced his two films.
“I think of her not as my producer, but as a fairy godmother, as if she were assembling the faults for her good will,” said Eisenberg.
The camera cut stone, crying and moved, at the audience. She and the producer of her husband Dave McCary, Fruit Tree, also produced “Problemist” by Julio Torres and “Ghosts” and “I Sear The TV Gow” by Schoenbrun.
“VI The TV Glow” entered the program tied with “Anora” with six nominations. He left with only one, for the producer Sarah Wascshall.
