Saturday saw awards season alight on the Independent Spirit Awards, which honours, as the title might clue you in, indie movies. And it was another big day for Everything Everywhere All At Once, which added seven prizes, including Best Feature, to its already impressive awards haul.
The awards — which used to be held the day before the Oscars, but shifted in 2021 – introduced gender neutral acting categories, leading to the likes of Cate Blanchett and Michelle Yeoh competing against Paul Mescal and Jeremy Pope. Yeoh took the win for EEAAO, while the movie also scored Best Director for the Daniels, Best Supporting Performance for Key huy Quan (the latest in his apparent sweep of the category), Best Screenplay, Best Editing for Paul Rogers and Breakthrough Performance for Stephanie Hsu.
Elsewhere, Emily The Criminal's John Patton Ford took home Best First Screenplay, while Aftersun director Charlotte Wells won Best First Feature. Sarah Polley's Women Talking nabbed the Robert Altman Award, given to one film’s director, casting director and ensemble cast.
The John Cassavetes Award (Given to the best feature made for less than $1,000,000) went to The Cathedral, while TÁR, which had been nipping at EEAAO's heels in terms of nominations, made do with Best Cinematography. Best Documentary was All The Beauty And The Bloodshed, while Joyland won Best International Film.
Nanny's Nikyatu Jusu won the Someone To Watch category, and Reid Davenport scored in the Truer Than Fiction category for I Didn’t See You There.
In recent years, the Indie Spirit Awards have also handed out TV prizes, and this year, Best New Scripted Series was won by The Bear, which also saw Ayo Edebiri take home Best Supporting Performance in a New Scripted Series. Best Lead Performance in a New Scripted Series was won by Abbott Elementary creator/star Quinta Brunson while The Rehearsal took Best New Non-Scripted or Documentary Series.