Precious Dominates at the 2010 Independent Spirit Awards

Posted by Sean on March 6th, 2010   Filed under: Awards, Indie
Source: indieWIRE

preciousspiritawards

The 25th Annual Independent Spirit Awards took place last night in Los Angeles, honouring the best films from 2009 with a budget of $20 million or less. I don’t think anyone will be surprised to learn that Lee Daniels’ Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire took home almost every single award that it was nominated for, while Jeff Bridges took home the award for Best Male Lead. Let’s hope it doesn’t jinx him at the Oscars tomorrow night like it did for Mickey Rourke.

Other Spirit Award winners include Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber for their screenplay for (500) Days of Summer, Woody Harrelson for Best Supporting Male for The Messenger and Anvil! The Story of Anvil for Best Documentary. Check out the full list of winners after the jump.

BEST FEATURE
Precious

BEST DIRECTOR
Lee Daniels, Precious

BEST FIRST FEATURE
Crazy Heart

JOHN CASSAVETES AWARD
(Best feature made for under $500,000)
Humpday

BEST SCREENPLAY
Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber, 500 Days of Summer

BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY
Geoffrey Fletcher, Precious

BEST FEMALE LEAD
Gabourey Sidibe, Precious

BEST MALE LEAD
Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart

BEST SUPPORTING FEMALE
Mo’Nique, Precious

BEST SUPPORTING MALE
Woody Harrelson, The Messenger

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Roger Deakins, A Serious Man

BEST DOCUMENTARY
Sacha Gervasi, Anvil! The Story of Anvil

BEST FOREIGN FILM
Lone Scherfig, An Education

ROBERT ALTMAN AWARD
(Given to one film’s director, casting director, and its ensemble cast)
“A Serious Man”
Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Casting Directors: Ellen Chenoweth, Rachel Tenner
Cast: Richard Kind, Sari Lennick, Jessica McManus, Michael Stuhlbarg, Aaron Wolff

PIAGET PRODUCERS AWARD
Karen Chien (“The Exploding Girl” & “Santa Mesa”)

SOMEONE TO WATCH AWARD
Kyle Patrick Alvarez (“Easier with Practice”)

TRUER THAN FICTION AWARD
Bill Ross & Turner Ross (“45365”)

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Comments (7)

  1. I was glad to see Precious sweep up last night. Aside from Monique, they having been winning many awards. It was a great job by all of the cast. Pretty funny speeches as well!

    Posted by One Source Talent on March 6th, 2010

  2. too bad that movie was beyond garbage

    Posted by mitch on March 6th, 2010

  3. I was displeased that this type of award show has sold out completely to any sponsors who now can just sign up to support Indie films thru the new “agency”, Film Independent. Only requirement – the budget not exceed $500,000.00. Pretty cheap advertising plan….SHOCK!
    No commercial breaks were on this live show, just constant mention of the sponsors products, weaved in and out of the awards (ex. “this category brought to you by…INSERT AD”).

    Luckily Eddie Izzard and other celebs were on hand to call out the hypocrisy.

    The future of Indie films is in the toliet.

    Posted by Jambler on March 6th, 2010

  4. The future of low budgets has been in the toilets for awhile. Avatar and this 3D thing isn’t going to help. There should always be a place for Independent films in theaters and they should have stronger representation in theaters.

    While I haven’t seen Paranormal Activity, and probably won’t, I wish we could see more success stories like that. Whatever happened to the micro budget films Paramount (I believe) were going to make a year? I know it was a more recent announcement but has there been any more word on what they have in store for those?

    Posted by Captain N on March 7th, 2010

  5. i agree with mitch

    Posted by that motherfucker on March 7th, 2010

  6. the way to help independent film is to get on the bandwagon and support on-demand and new media delivery methods. as film fans we need to educate our less intune friends that the “direct to video” label is different these days. like music, the best stuff is not in theaters. we need to support “word-of-moth” networks and celebrate little finds by telling our friends. we need to work toward the day everyone’s film is a mouse click away and a minimal delivery charge allows the good films to flourish and their makers the resources to make more films.

    Posted by rus in chicago on March 10th, 2010

  7. As with all things in life, 99.9% of independent film is crap.

    Posted by Reed Farrington on March 10th, 2010

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