“The Lost Daughter”The big winner was not the 2022 Film Independent Spirit Awards, but it will be remembered as the year when the Indie Spirits moved beyond the Oscars in more than one way.
The Academy Awards used to be held on Saturday afternoons, but the Oscars were held a few days later. However, the Spirit Awards moved to Sundays three weeks before. Film Independent president Josh Welsh explained that the move was made by the Spirit Awards. “Shifting earlier in the awards season will allow us to shine an even brighter light on the films and shows we are excited to celebrate.”
It was a move to influence the awards season more that it could in its usual spot after Oscar voting ends. This year, the Spirit Awards showed its favorites before Academy voters could start casting their ballots.
But the date change didn’t really matter, because the Indie Spirit Awards’ connection to and influence on the Oscars has never been more minimal. And that’s likely to be true even though a few of Sunday‘s winners – supporting actor Troy Kotsur, documentary feature “Summer of Soul”International film “Drive My Car” – will likely repeat at the Oscars in three weeks.
Nothing will come out of the Spirit Awards with awards-season momentum that it didn’t already have – because this year’s Spirit nominations were so singular, and so independent, that Academy members couldn’t vote for them if they wanted to. (They could have voted for these films and people in the nomination round of voting, of course, but they didn’t.)
This is the lowest historical overlap between the Oscars and Spirit Awards. There was not one Best Feature or Best Director nominee nominated for Oscars. There were only two acting nominees each in the four categories, and seven overall nominees (three in the documentary category).
Still, one thing didn’t change: If voters in a category had an Oscar nominee they could vote for, they did, starting with Best Supporting Male winner Troy Kotsur from “CODA”For Maggie Gyllenhaal, please continue reading “The Lost Daughter”Screenplay and “Drive My Car”International film. Ruth Negga won the award for supporting female. “Passing”For the Oscar-nominated Jessie Buckley “The Lost Daughter.”)
The award for Best Documentary, which had three Oscar nominees in it, went to the film most likely to win. “Summer of Soul.”
Overall, the Spirit Awards provided a nice spotlight for Gyllenhaal’s “The Lost Daughter,”The Gotham Awards also awarded the Gotham Awards, a major award for independent cinema. It helped to increase visibility. “Zola,”It was won by Taylour Paige, the lead actress, and Joi McMillon, the editor; it also provided a source of income. “Red Rocket” star Simon Rex with the moment on an awards stage he has richly deserved all season and won’t have the opportunity to get at the Dolby Theatre in three weeks.
Despite not being able to reveal it, the 2022 Indie Spirits shared one major thing with the Oscars: The awards for cinematography, editing, and international film were presented during commercial breaks, rather than the live broadcast and then edited into the broadcast. Particularly, the international presentation was rushed and came during the last commercial.
And maybe the Oscars had better worry — because even with those categories handed out off the air, the ceremony ran significantly overtime.