With six nominations each, Alexander Payne‘s wine-soaked Sideways and Joshua Marston‘s intense drug drama Maria Full of Grace lead the 20th IFP Independent Spirit Awards nominations, announced Tuesday. Both films were nominated for, among other categories, best feature, best director best male lead (Sideways‘ Paul Giamatti) and best female lead (Grace‘s Catalina Sandino Moreno). Actors Dennis Quaid and Selma Blair served as presenters at the event.
Others nominated for best feature were Mario Van Peebles‘ Baadasssss!; Kinsey, starring Liam Neeson as famed sex researcher Alfred Kinsey; and Shane Carruth‘s Primer, this year’s Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize winner.
Dawn Hudson, executive director of IFP/Los Angeles, the largest non-profit membership organization for independent filmmakers, said in a statement, “Over the last 20 years, the Spirit Awards have consistently celebrated the most talented artists–known and unknown–working in independent film. We’ve honored many filmmakers and artists at the beginning of their careers, and this year is no different.”
The winners will be announced at the IFP Independent Spirit Awards ceremony on Feb. 26, 2005 and will air live on the cable network IFC at 5 p.m. EST, as well as be rebroadcast that night on Bravo at 10 p.m. EST.
The complete list of nominations:
BEST FEATURE
BEST DIRECTOR
Joshua Marston, Maria Full of Grace
Walter Salles, The Motorcycle Diaries
Mario Van Peebles, Baadasssss!
BEST SCREENPLAY
BEST FIRST FEATURE
BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY
JOHN CASSAVETES AWARD
BEST DEBUT PERFORMANCE
Anthony Mackie, Brother to Brother
Louie Olivos, Jr., Robbing Peter
Rodrigo de la Serna, The Motorcycle Diaries
BEST SUPPORTING FEMALE
Cate Blanchett, Coffee and Cigarettes
Loretta Devine, Woman Thou Art Loosed
Yenny Paola Vega, Maria Full of Grace
BEST SUPPORTING MALE
Thomas Haden Church, Sideways
Jon Gries, Napoleon Dynamite
Aidan Quinn, Cavedweller
Roger Robinson, Brother to Brother
BEST FEMALE LEAD
Kimberly Elise, Woman Thou Art Loosed
Vera Farmiga, Down to the Bone
Catalina Sandino Moreno, Maria Full of Grace
Kyra Sedgwick, Cavedweller
BEST MALE LEAD
Jeff Bridges, The Door in the Floor
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
BEST FOREIGN FILM
Bad Education, Spain
Oasis, South Korea
Red Lights, France
The Sea Inside, Spain
Yesterday, South Africa
BEST DOCUMENTARY
Chisholm ’72: Unbought & Unbossed
Hiding and Seeking: Faith and Tolerance After the Holocaust
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
SPECIAL DISTINCTION
Ensemble cast of Mean Creek: Rory Culkin, Ryan Kelley, Scott Mechlowicz, Trevor Morgan, Josh Peck and Carly Schroeder
