Progressive Spirit Awards cock a snook at Oscars

As the entertainment world gears up for an Oscar ceremony that’s been tainted by a row about a lack of diversity, the Independent Spirit Awards, handed out a day ahead of the Academy’s trophies, has shunned the establishment with three of the four acting awards going to black performers – and one of those being transgender.

Best Male Lead Abraham Attah (left) with Best Supporting Male Idris Elba in Beats of No Nation
Best Male Lead Abraham Attah (left) with Best Supporting Male Idris Elba in Beast of No Nation

The Spirits, honouring lower budget films, saw Beasts of No Nation, about child soldiers in Africa, picking up both of the male acting awards; Abraham Attah won the Best Male Lead for playing a child soldier, while the outspoken British star Idris Elba took the Best Supporting Male award for playing the Commandant.

The Best Supporting Female went to Mya Taylor – the transgender actress who starred in one of the London Film Festival favourites, Tangerine – the first transgender star to be honoured in the history of the Spirits. “There’s very beautiful transgender talent. So, you better get it out there and put it in your next movie,” she told the crowd at the ceremony.

The only one of the acting awards to go to an Oscars contender was Best Female Lead, which was taken by the Academy Award favourite Brie Larson, for Room, who’s writer Emma Donoghue, won the Best First Screenplay prize.

But the big winner of the night was a more mainstream movie, with Spotlight – one of the main Oscar contenders – taking five; Best Feature, Best Director for Tom McCarthy, Best Screenplay, the Robert Altman Award for the best ensemble cast and Best Editing.

Other films to win Spirit Awards were The Diary of a Teenage Girl, which was named the Best First Feature, Carol, for its cinematography, the Hungarian Holocaust drama Son of Saul, as the Best International Film, The Look of Silence, as the Best Documentary. Krisha won the John Cassavettes Award for the best film with a budget of less than half a million dollars.

The Independent Spirit Awards, staged by the film-makers’ organisation Film Independent, are handed out every year on the afternoon before the Oscars. Some years, they’re very much a rehearsal for the big night ahead, with the same stars appearing on a more informal stage, but with its lower budget angle, the ceremony can – and in this case, certainly has done – try to make waves politically, as well as artistically.