Independent Spirit Award

The Independent Spirit Awards, originally known as the FINDIE or Friends of Independents Awards, and later as the Film Independent Spirit Awards, are awards presented annually in Santa Monica, California, to independent filmmakers. Founded in 1984, the event was renamed the Independent Spirit Awards in 1986. The ceremony is produced by Film Independent, a not-for-profit arts organization that used to produce the LA Film Festival. Film Independent members vote to determine the winners of the Spirit Awards.

The awards show is held in a tent on a beach in Santa Monica, California, historically on the Saturday before the Academy Awards. In 2023, the ceremony was moved to the week before the Oscars, with the expectation that its winners could influence the final days of Oscar voting. The show was previously broadcast live on the IFC network in the US until 2023, when it was moved to YouTube, as well as Hollywood Suite in Canada and A&E Latin America. Winners were previously presented with acrylic glass pyramids containing suspended shoestrings representing the bare budgets of independent films. Since 2006, winners receive a metal trophy depicting a bird with its wings spread sitting atop of a pole with the shoestrings from the previous design wrapped around the pole.

In 2020, new categories were announced for the 36th Independent Spirit Awards, which would honor the best in television productions and performances. These categories included Best New Scripted Series, Best New Non-Scripted or Documentary Series, Best Male Performance, Best Female Performance, and Best Ensemble Cast. In 2022, it was announced that gender neutral acting categories would be implemented and that the previous gendered film categories — Male Lead, Female Lead, Male Supporting and Female Supporting — would be retired in favor of a Best Lead Performance and a Best Supporting Performance categories, which would feature 10 nominees each. Other new categories added included Best Breakthrough Performance and Best Lead and Supporting Performance in the TV section.

, films competing for Independent Spirit Awards must have budgets lower than $28 million, but no budget cap exists for television shows.

Categories

Film categories

Television categories

Emerging filmmakers awards

Retired categories

History

Founded in 1979, the New York based organization ''Independent Feature Project'' is now known as The Gotham Film & Media Institute, with Gotham TV Awards and Gotham Independent Film Awards.

By 1981, Gregory Nava and Anna Thomas and a small semi-informal group of directors–filmmakers, writers and producers began to regularly meet, share knowledge and support each others projects, eventually calling themselves '' was soon known as ''Independent Feature Project/West''. Robert "Bob" Rosen, former Dean of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, was one of the founding board members.

In 1984 the FINDIE Awards (Friends of Independents) were conceived by Independent Features Project/West board member Jeanne Lucas and Independent Features Project/West President Anne Kimmel and director/writer Sam O'Brien was an event producer. The awards are voted on by a nominating committee.

In 1985, Peter Coyote and Jamie Lee Curtis presented winners with a Plexiglas pyramid designed by Carol Bosselman, which contain a suspended shoestring, printed with sprocket holes, representing the shoestring budgets of independent films. The Reel Gold Award, also designed by Bosselman, was given to Steve Wachtel for allowing Independent Features Project/West continuing free use of his screening room. It was associated with Filmex. In 1986, Bosselman designed and sculpted the Independent Spirit Award statue that is still given out today, using a lost wax bronze casting method.

1985 Awards
:Source:
*Best Feature, '' After Hours''
*Best Director, Joel Coen
*Best Female Lead, Geraldine Page
*Best Male Lead, M. Emmet Walsh
*Best Cinematography, '' Trouble in Mind''
*Best Screenplay, '' After Hours''
*Special Distinction Award, '' Kiss of the Spider Woman''

Dawn Hudson was director of Independent Features Project/West in 1995.

Barbara Boyle was Independent Features Project/West president from 1994 to 1999.

By 2001, ''Independent Features Project/West'' became ''Film Independent''. The name Film Independent was adopted in 2005.

In the late summer, we open up for submissions. Individual filmmakers and studios and distributors send their films to us. We assemble nominating committees in the fall. They’re composed of many different people within the industry.

At the 2025 Independent Spirit Awards, acting president Brenda Robinson delivered a heartfelt tribute to longtime Film Independent president Josh Welsh, honoring the "visionary" who passed away on New Year's Eve at the age of 62 after a five-year battle with colon cancer. Welsh, who had served as president since 2012, was remembered for his immense contributions to the organization and the film community.

Ceremonies

Formerly held at a restaurant, and a hotel, and a ballroom, it is most recently held the day before the Academy Awards as a luncheon event in a tented parking lot next to the ocean in Santa Monica.

See also

* American Cinematheque
* Sundance Film Festival
* Indiewood

References

External links

The 2015 official rules and regulations
of the Independent Spirit Awards

{{DEFAULTSORT:Independent Spirit Awards

American film awards
Awards established in 1984
1984 establishments in the United States
American television awards