The Independent Spirit Awards

In honor of the 24th Annual Spirit Awards, which will air on Feb. 21, here is an article I wrote this same time last year about being a voter for the premiere independent film awards:

A few months ago, I became a member of IFP, Independent Film Project, which is a non-profit organization for budding filmmakers. I signed up knowing that I’d be invited to tons of preview screenings and I’d get a subscription to Filmmaker magazine. A week or two after going to the IFP screening of Juno (where I was lucky enough to meet screenwriter Diablo Cody a week or two before she became a media obsession), I found out that IFP membership includes voting privileges for the Independent Spirit Awards. Naturally, I was thrilled: these are the Oscars of low-budget movies!

A lot of the movies I wound up having to see, however, were not Oscar material, to say the least. The five nominees for the John Cassavetes Award, for the best film made with less than $500,000, were admirable, but to a large extent boring. Although some of the nominees may not be at the top of your Netflix queue- overlooked titles like Broken English or Interview, for example- many are truly great films, every bit as strong as mainstream films made over the Spirit’s budget cap, $20,000,000. This year, as has been the trend for at least a decade, the Oscars nominations have reflected quality in independent filmmaking. This year, Spirit Awards favorites The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and Juno each earned four Oscar nominations, while The Savages grabbed two. In past years, there is even more crossover between the two awards shows, which air on consecutive nights. Two years ago, seven films nominated at the Indie Spirits were also nominated at the Oscars; remarkably enough, four of these- Crash, Brokeback Mountain, Good Night and Good Luck., and Capote- were nominated for Best Picture!

Regrettably, the Oscars didn’t give the indie films enough attention this year. While some might say that Oscar favorites such as Atonement and No Country for Old Men are pseudo-indie, as they were produced by the quasi-independent “specialty divisions” of major studios, their budgets were too high to qualify for the Spirit Awards.

Thanks to the Spirit Award screenings I was invited to, I got to see several of the films that critics loved, but, due to their lack of distribution (they were shown in film festivals but never came to U.S. theaters), were not able to build awards momentum. Paranoid Park, the latest from the divisive Portlander Gus Van Sant, boasts surprisingly strong direction and not-so-surprisingly beautiful cinematography from Christopher Doyle, an Australian famous for his collaborations with Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar-Wai. The film is adapted from the Blake Nelson novel of the same name about a skater kid who is ravaged by guilt and disillusionment after becoming entangled in a murder case. The film works well because Van Sant has an extraordinary understanding of younger people; while his work is inconsistent, his examinations of adolescence (e.g. Elephant) always turn out well.

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, another film I got to see for the Spirit Awards, is powerful for similar reasons. Breakthrough director Cristian Mungiu modeled his visual storytelling on the way his characters were feeling. If they were nervous, the camera would twitch and meander; if they were claustrophobic, the audience would feel so, too, as a result of the expertly composed shots. The relentlessly gripping film tells the bleak story of two girls, Otilia and Gabita, who needs an abortion. Their attempt to cirumvent the anti-abortion law in 1987 Communist Romania has grim consequences. Winner of the Palme D’Or, the top prize at Cannes, 4 Months… is a must see for anyone interested in contemporary world cinema. That it was snubbed completely at the Oscars is shameful.

So what’s next on the IFP calendar? Not much until after the Awards, which air on IFC on Saturday, Feb 23. By the way, I highly recommend signing up for IFP membership (http://ifp.org/nav/membership.php). You don’t have to work in the film industry: a large number of the members are simply film fans. The screenings held throughout the year are a great way to learn more about the process of filmmaking, since there is almost always an actor, writer, producer, or director present to answer questions. See you at the movies!