Anyone who’s seen Moonlight probably walked away from the theater knowing they saw something special. The voters at the Independent Spirit Awards clearly thought so too: Barry Jenkins’ intimate and ambitious drama won six awards at tonight’s ceremony, more than any other film.
Moonlight won the Independent Spirit Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Editing and the Robert Altman Award, a special prize that is given out to a film’s cast, director and casting director. It is the story of a young boy who becomes an adolescent and then a man, whose story is told in three different acts by three different actors, creating a sense of ongoing transformation and personal evolution.
The Independent Spirit Awards are giving an impressive show of support for a film that, despite widespread acclaim, has largely been overshadowed this Oscars season by La La Land. Damien Chazelle’s nostalgic musical wasn’t eligible for the Independent Spirit Awards but it earned a record 14 Oscar nominations, a feat only matched by Titanic and All About Eve, and is expected to sweep the Academy Awards when they are announced later this weekend. (Moonlight is considered to be the other serious contender for the Best Picture and Best Director awards.)
A24
Also: It Looks Like ‘La La Land’ is the Next ‘The Artist’
The only other film to earn more than one Independent Spirit Award this year was the horror drama The Witch, which took home the trophies for Best First Feature and Best First Feature. The Witch is an eerie and fascinating story about a family of pilgrims living on the edge of colonial America, falling prey to either a supernatural force, or their own sins and secrets.
Other Independent Spirit Awards winners include Casey Affleck, taking home Best Actor for Manchester By The Sea, and Isabelle Huppert, who won Best Actress for Elle. Ben Foster earned the Best Supporting Actor honor for his work in Hell or High Water, and Molly Shannon earned Best Supporting Actor for her heartbreaking turn in Other People.
The complete list of Independent Spirit Award winners is below!
Best Feature:
Moonlight (A24)
Producers: Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Adele Romanski
Best Director:
Barry Jenkins, Moonlight (A24)
Best Screenplay:
Barry Jenkins, Tarell Alvin McCraney (Story By), Moonlight (A24)
Best First Feature:
The Witch (A24)
Director: Robert Eggers
Producers: Daniel Bekerman, Jay Van Hoy, Lars Knudsen, Jodi Redmond, Rodrigo Teixeira
Best First Screenplay:
Robert Eggers, The Witch (A24)
John Cassavetes Award (For best feature made under $500,000):
Spa Night (Strand Releasing)
Writer/Director: Andrew Ahn
Producers: David Ariniello, Giulia Caruso, Ki Jin Kim, Kelly Thomas
Best Supporting Female:
Molly Shannon, Other People (Vertical Entertainment)
Best Supporting Male:
Ben Foster, Hell or High Water (CBS Films/Lionsgate)
Best Female Lead:
Isabelle Huppert, Elle (Sony Pictures Classics)
Best Male Lead:
Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea (Amazon Studios)
Robert Altman Award:
Moonlight (A24)
Director: Barry Jenkins
Casting Director: Yesi Ramirez
Ensemble Cast: Mahershala Ali, Patrick Decile, Naomie Harris, Alex Hibbert, André Holland, Jharrel Jerome, Janelle Monáe, Jaden Piner, Trevante Rhodes, Ashton Sanders
Best Cinematography:
James Laxton, Moonlight (A24)
Best Editing:
Joi McMillon, Nat Sanders, Moonlight (A24)
Best International Film:
Toni Erdmann (Germany and Romania– Sony Pictures Classics)
Director: Maren Ade
Best Documentary:
O.J.: Made in America (ESPN Films)
Director/Producer: Ezra Edelman
Producers: Deirdre Fenton, Libby Geist, Nina Krstic, Erin Leyden, Tamara Rosenberg, Connor Schell, Caroline Waterlow
Piaget Producers Award:
(Honors emerging producers who, despite highly limited resources, demonstrate the creativity, tenacity and vision required to produce quality, independent films. The award includes a $25,000 unrestricted grant funded by Piaget.)
Jordana Mollick
Truer Than Fiction Award
(Presented to an emerging director of non-fiction features who has not yet received significant recognition. The award includes a $25,000 unrestricted grant.)
Nanfu Wang
Director of Hooligan Sparrow
Kiehl’s Someone To Watch Award
(Recognizes a talented filmmaker of singular vision who has not yet received appropriate recognition. The award includes a $25,000 unrestricted grant funded by Kiehl’s Since 1851.)
Anna Rose Holmer
Director of The Fits
Where Oscar Winners Keep Their Oscars:
Top Photo: A24
William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and Canceled Too Soon, and watch him on the weekly YouTube series What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
Where Do they Keep Their Oscars?
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Dustin Hoffman
A studious man who won Academy Awards for his performances in both Kramer vs. Kramer and Rain Man has said that he keeps his Oscars in his study. We haven't been to Hoffman's house, but it's easy to imagine a room full of books, low lighting, and darkened wood furniture. This was admitted to InStyle, where he also said they used to be kept out of sight.
Image: MGM/UA
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Emma Thompson
Emma Thompson has won two Oscars, one for her performance in Howard's End, and another for her writing of Sense & Sensibility. In an interview with The Guardian she said her statuettes were gaudy, and the only good place for them is in her bathroom.
Image: Columbia Pictures
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George Clooney
Clooney also has two Academy Awards, for acting in Syriana, and for producing the Best Picture winner Argo. Like Hoffman, as he told The Guardian, he keeps his statuettes in a studious place: His personal library.
Image: Warner Bros.
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Goldie Hawn
Hawn won an Academy Award back in 1969 for her performance in Cactus Flower, playing opposite Walter Matthau. A famously spiritual person, Hawn, according to InStyle, keeps her Oscar in a room in her house she calls "The India Room." It's where she goes to meditate.
Image: Columbia Pictures
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Gwyneth Paltrow
Paltrow won a Best Actress Oscar for her performance in Shakespeare in Love, and she may feel ambivalent about the attention she got. She claims to have her statuette "tucked away." Evidently, as she told Digital Spy, it's not on display anywhere.
Image: Miramax
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Jennifer Lawrence
Jennifer Lawrence, one of the more lauded actresses of her generation, won an Oscar for her performance in Silver Linings Playbook, and gave the statuette to her parents. According to The Radio Times, they keep it in her old Kentucky home, on top the piano.
Image: The Weinstein Company
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Jodie Foster
For many years, Foster, who won Oscars for The Accused and for The Silence of the Lambs, kept her Oscars in the bathroom in an attempt to be modest. She has since moved them into a trophy case. This was a fact collected by ABC News.
Image: Orion Pictures
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Kate Winslet
The bathroom seems to be a rather popular place to keep an Oscar. I like to think that all actors keep them atop their toilet tanks. Winslet, who won her Oscar for The Reader, has said her statuette is in her loo, according to an interview with The Wall Street Journal.
Image: The Weinstein Company
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Russell Crowe
Crowe, who won an Oscar for Gladiator, feels that the statuette has some appealing properties that help chickens lay eggs, so he keeps his statuette, as he told The Guardian, in a chicken coop in his Australian ranch.
Image: DreamWorks
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Timothy Hutton
Once, just to play a prank on some party guests, Timothy Hutton stuck his Oscar, won for Ordinary People, in his refrigerator. Evidently, according to ABC News, he liked in there so much, that it remains there to this day.
Image: Paramount
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Tom Hanks
Hanks famously won the Best Actor Oscar two years in a row (for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump), but he is still one of the friendlier and humbler of Hollywood's giant stars, keeping his Oscars - according to The Hollywood Reporter - on the same shelf as football trophies and "World's Greatest Mom" trophies.
Image: TriStar Pictures
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Anna Paquin
Anna Paquin admitted to InStyle Magazine that she keeps her Oscar for The Piano, won when she was a wee lass, in her closet next to her boots.
Image: Miramax
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Susan Sarandon
As told to The Hollywood Reporter, Susan Sarandon, who won an Oscar for Dead Man Walking, used to keep her Oscar in a guest bathroom, but eventually lent it to a traveling exhibit in the Natural History Museum, according to what she told ABC News. It doesn't seem to be in earshot anymore.
Image: Gramercy Pictures
