Each year the day before the Oscars, the Independent Spirit Awards are held, which were set up as the equivalent of the Hollywood-centric Academy Awards but for movies made outside the mainstream. This year the big winner was Moonlight, which picked up five gongs.
The film, about three stages in the life of a young gay man, picked up Best Feature, Best Director and Best Screenplay for Barry Jenkins, Best Cinematography for James Laxton and the Robert Altman Award for Best Ensemble. It’s an impressive result for the movie, which is also hoping to win some awards at the Oscars. While most expect La La Land to be the big winner at the Academy Awards, many hope Moonlight will at least be able to at least pick up a couple Oscars, and some think it has a decent chance of providing an upset and winning Best Film.
Moonlight wasn’t the only gay-themed film that triumphed at the Independent Spirit Awards. Molly Shannon won Best Supporting Actress for playing the dying mother of a gay son in the dramedy Other People. There was also Andrew Ahn’s Spa Night, about a Korean-American teenager who finds an underground world of gay sex in a Korean spa, which took home the John Cassavetes Awards for Best Feature Made For Under $5,000.
It was certainly a gay-heavy evening! The Oscars only have Moonlight representing gay-themed cinema, so we’ll have to cross our fingers that it manages to win a few awards there too. Take a look at the full list of Independent Spirit Award winners and some highlights below. [Read more…]
It’s certainly been a good year for gay-themed films amongst the nominations for the Independent Spirit Awards, the pre-eminent indie awards ceremony (films are only eligible if they have a budget of less and $20 million), which takes place ahead of the Oscars each year. Leading the way is the acclaimed Moonlight, Barry Jenkins’ film about a young, gay African-American, which picked up six noms, equal with the Shia LaBeouf starrer, American Honey.
Other People got a lot of buzz when it debuted at Sundance, but also sparked a little controversy after reports that people walked out during a gay sex scene featuring Jesse Plemons’ character. Plemons reacted by saying, “I’d love to talk to them and figure out what it was about that scene that made them leave.”
Battleship and Breaking Bad actor Jesse Plemons has booked himself a new role (which will hopefully take the sting off the fact that for months he was rumoured to be the lead in the new Star Wars film, but ultimately won’t be in the movie at all).