The little teen pregnancy movie that could made a last-minute surge towards tomorrow’s Oscars as Juno won three of its four Independent Spirit Award categories during Saturday’s event.
As we noted while live-blogging the red carpet from Jiminy Glick’s Netflix living room, this year’s Film Independent Spirit Awards seemed to be all about Jason Reitman‘s Juno from the get-go. As Juno had become the buzzword of this awards season, earning critics circles’ and numerous Top Ten honors, one’s Oscar pool ballot might seem to be amiss without at least one or two Juno-related predictions.
And so it was when Hollywood came out Saturday afternoon for the Film Independent Spirit Awards. Held in a beachside tent in Santa Monica, the champagne-fueled party got A-listers and indie filmmakers alike out in droves to celebrate the best of the year’s independent, or at least independent in spirit, films. Leading the pack of winners was Juno, which won the day’s top prize for Best Feature. Twenty-year-old star Ellen Page won the trophy for Best Actress, and writer Diablo Cody won for the Best First Screenplay.
Cody faced a room full of press after her win. “To me having the film be made is the reward,” she said. “You never expect in a million years that [your screenplay] is even going to be produced…this is so cool!”
RT asked Cody if she, like the majority of Oscar pundits, sees Juno as the front runner for tomorrow’s event.
“No! The fact that people have embraced this movie the way they did continues to be a surprise. I still think of us as the ‘little pregnant girl movie’ that has somehow caught on. It doesn’t feel like an Oscar movie.”
Also nabbing multiple wins were the Oscar-nominated films The Savages (Philip Seymour Hoffman for Best Actor, writer-director Tamara Jenkins for Best Screenplay) and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (director Julian Schnabel for Best Director, Janusz Kaminski for Best Cinematography). Earlier, Jason Reitman had predicted that the directing award would go to his fellow nominee Schnabel; both are also up for Best Director in tomorrow’s Oscar race.
Rounding out the acting awards were wins by Chiwetel Ejiofor for his upporting role in Talk To Me, and Cate Blanchett, who received a supporting trophy for her role as Bob Dylan in Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There (for which she is also Oscar-nominated). Blanchett will be competing for a second award tomorrow night for her starring role in Elizabeth: The Golden Age.
Check out the full list of Indie Spirit Award winners below (winners in bold).
Best Feature
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
I’m Not There
Juno
A Mighty Heart
Paranoid Park
Best Director
Todd Haynes
I’m Not There
Tamara Jenkins
The Savages
Jason Reitman
Juno
Julian Schnabel
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Gus Van Sant
Paranoid Park
Best Female Lead
Angelina Jolie
A Mighty Heart
Sienna Miller
Interview
Ellen Page
Juno
Parker Posey
Broken English
Tang Wei
Lust, Caution
Best Male Lead
Pedro Castaneda
August Evening
Don Cheadle
Talk to Me
Philip Seymour Hoffman
The Savages
Tony Leung
Lust, Caution
Frank Langella
Starting Out in the Evening
Best Supporting Female
Cate Blanchett
I’m Not There
Anna Kendrick
Rocket Science
Jennifer Jason Leigh
Margot at the Wedding
Tamara Podemski
Four Sheets to the Wind
Marisa Tomei
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
Best Supporting Male
Chiwetel Ejiofor
Talk to Me
Marcus Carl Franklin
I’m Not There
Kene Holliday
Great World of Sound
Irfan Khan
The Namesake
Steve Zahn
Rescue Dawn
Best Cinematography
Mott Hupful
The Savages
Janusz Kaminski
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Milton Kam
Vanaja
Mihai Malaimare, Jr.
Youth Without Youth
Rodrigo Prieto
Lust, Caution
Best Screenplay
Ronald Harwood
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Tamara Jenkins
The Savages
Fred Parnes & Andrew Wagner
Starting Out in the Evening
Adrienne Shelly
Waitress
Mike White
Year of the Dog
Best First Screenplay
Jeffrey Blitz
Rocket Science
Zoe Cassavetes
Broken English
Diablo Cody
Juno
Kelly Masterson
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
John Orloff
A Mighty Heart
Best First Feature
2 Days in Paris
Director: Julie Delpy
Producers: Julie Delpy, Christophe Mazodier, Thierry Potok
Great World of Sound
Director Craig Zobel
Producers: Melissa Palmer, David Gordon Green, Richard Wright, Craig Zobel
The Lookout
Director: Scott Frank
Producers: Roger Birnbaum, Gary Barber, Laurence Mark, Walter Parkes
Rocket Science
Director: Jeffrey Blitz
Producers: Effie T. Brown, Sean Welch
Vanaja
Director: Rajnesh Domalpalli
Producer Latha R. Domalapalli
Best Documentary
Crazy Love
Director: Dan Klores
Lake of Fire
Director: Tony Kaye
Manufactured Landscapes
Director: Jennifer Baichwal
The Monastery
Director: Pernille Rose Gronkjaer
The Prisoner Or: How I Planned To Kill Tony Blair
Directors: Petra Epperlein & Michael Tucker
Best Foreign Film
4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 3 Days (Romania)
Director: Cristian Mungiu
The Band’s Visit (Israel)
Director: Eran Koirin
Lady Chatterley (France)
Director: Pascale Ferran
Once (Ireland)
Director: John Carney
Persepolis (France)
Director: Vincent Paronnaud & Marjane Satrapi
Robert Altman Award
I’m Not There
Director: Todd Haynes
Casting Director Laura Rosenthal
Ensemble Cast: Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, Ben Whishaw, Marcus Carl Franklin, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Bruce Greenwood, David Cross, Julianne Moore, Michelle Williams
John Cassavetes Award
August Evening
Writer/Director: Chris Eska
Producers: Connie Hill, Jason Wehling
Owl and the Sparrow
Writer/Director: Stephane Gauger
Producers: Nguyen Van Quen, Doan Nhat Nam, Stephane Gauger
The Pool
Director: Chris Smith
Producer: Kate Noble
Writers: Chris Smith & Randy Russell
Quiet City
Director: Aaron Katz
Producers: Brendan McFadden, Ben Stambler
Writers: Aaron Katz, Erin Fisher, Cris Lankenau
Shotgun Stories
Writer/Director: Jeff Nichols
Producers: David Gordon Green, Lisa Muskat, Jeff Nichols
IFC/Acura Someone to Watch Award
Ramin Bahrani
Director of Chop Shop
Lee Isaac Chung
Director of Munyurangabo
Ronnie Bronstein
Director of Frownland
Piaget Producers Award
Anne Clements
Producer of Ping Pong Playa and Quinceañera
Alexis Ferris
Producer of Cthulhu and Police Beat
Neil Kopp
Producer of Paranoid Park and Old Joy
Read our red carpet report here, blogged from Jiminy Glick’s (Martin Short) celebrity living room.
