LOS ANGELES, Jan. 13, 2000 — While the Academy Awards take place at the glamorous Shrine Auditorium, another awards will take place the night before, under a tent on the Santa Monica beach.
They are the IFP/West Independent Spirit Awards, honoring the highbrow, low-funded, nonfranchise pictures. At least we think; with the breakout of indie films in the past few years, the definition keeps changing.
“The year 2000 is starting to get blurry in terms of what the independent things are,” mused Isaiah Washington (“True Crime”) at the awards’ nomination party last night at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles. “I’m assuming that independent films that are still finding their way to Sundance are [independent] before they get picked up by major studios. … If you ask your mom or your brother and your sister to make it, it is independent.”
Dawn Hudson, executive director of IFP/West, offered a practical explanation: “It is an aesthetic. It’s like the pornography rule: You know it when you see it. It’s not a sequel, it’s not formulaic, it’s not a predictable ending. … It’s challenging and a less predictable one.”
But Forest Whitaker, star of the upcoming indie film “Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai,” waxed philosophical. “It reflects a film that has an indpendent point of view, a distinct vision that’s not necessarily a mass point of view,” the actor said. “To me, that’s what defines that, and it’s that unique vision that sometimes is difficult to have the finances that reflect that.”
The nominations were hosted by independent-film fixture Illeana Douglas, and presenters included Kevin Pollak and Eric Stoltz. Other guests included actor and board member Vondie Curtis-Hall and Elizabeth Peña.
Presenter Brooke Shields was grateful for the opportunities independent films gave, especially with her day job as the star of NBC’s “Suddenly Susan.”
“Independent films have been great to me,” the actress gushed. “They’ve been very welcoming to me and allowed me an arena to try different things without pressure, and I have a lot of respect for that. You have relative anonymity; there’s less preconception, there’s a willingness to see people succeed, a willingness to change stereotypes. So someone like me who comes in with all of that, it’s a nice place to be.”
The awards will take place March 25, the eve of the Oscars. The nominees are:
Best feature: “Election,” “The Limey,” “The Straight Story,” “Sugar Town” and “Cookie’s Fortune”
Best director: Alexander Payne, “Election”; Harmony Korine, “julien donkey-boy”; Steven Soderbergh, “The Limey”; David Lynch, “The Straight Story”; and Doug Liman, “Go”
Best first feature over $500,000: “Being John Malkovich,” “Boys Don’t Cry,” “Three Seasons,” “Twin Falls Idaho” and “Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl”
Best first feature under $500,000: “The Blair Witch Project,” “La Ciudad,” “Compensation,” “Judy Berlin” and “Treasure Island”
Best debut performance: Kimberly J. Brown, “Tumbleweeds”; Jessica Campbell, “Election”; Jade Gordon, “Sugar Town”; Toby Smith, “Drylongso”; and Chris Stafford, “Edge of Seventeen”
Best female lead: Diane Lane, “A Walk on the Moon”; Janet McTeer, “Tumbleweeds”; Hilary Swank, “Boys Don’t Cry”; Susan Traylor, “Valerie Flake”; and Reese Witherspoon, “Election”
Best male lead: John Cusack, “Being John Malkovich”; Richard Farnsworth, “The Straight Story”; Terence Stamp, “The Limey”; David Strathairn, “Limbo”; and Noble Willingham, “The Corndog Man”
Best supporting female: Barbara Barrie, “Judy Berlin”; Vanessa Martinez, “Limbo”; Sarah Polley, “Go”; Chloë Sevigny, “Boys Don’t Cry”; and Jean Smart, “Guinevere”
Best supporting male: Charles S. Dutton, “Cookie’s Fortune”; Luis Guzman, “The Limey”; Terence Howard, “The Best Man”; Clark Gregg, “The Adventures of Sebastian Cole” and Steve Zahn, “Happy, Texas”
Best screenplay: Kevin Smith, “Dogma”; Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, “Election”; Audrey Wells, “Guinevere”; Lem Dobbs, “The Limey”; and James Merendino, “SLC Punk!”
Best first screenplay: Tod Williams, “The Adventures of Sebastian Cole”; Charlie Kaufman, “Being John Malkovich”; Kimberly Peirce and Andy Bienen, “Boys Don’t Cry”; Anne Rapp, “Cookie’s Fortune”; and John Roach and Mary Sweeney, “The Straight Story”
Best cinematographer: M. David Mullen, “Twin Falls Idaho”; Lisa Rinzler, “Three Seasons”; Anthony Dod Mantle, “julien donkey-boy”; Jeffrey Seckendorf, “Judy Berlin”; and Harlan Bosmajian, “La Ciudad”
Best foreign film: “All About My Mother” (Spain), “Run Lola Run” (Germany), “My Son the Fanatic” (England), “Topsy-Turvy” (England) and “Rosetta” (Belgium-France)
Motorola Producers Award finalists: Pam Koffler, “I’m Losing You”; Eva Kolodner, “Boys Don’t Cry”; Paul Mezey, “La Ciudad”; Christina Walker, “Backroads”; and “Homo Heights”
DLJ Direct Truer than Fiction Award finalists: Owsley Brown, “Night Waltz: The Music of Paul Bowles”; Nanette Burstein and Brett Morgan, “On the Ropes”; Michael Camerini and Shari Robertson, “Well Rounded Fear”; and Rory Kennedy, “American Hollow.”
Movado Someone To Watch Award finalists: Dan Clark, “The Item”; Julian Goldberger, “Trans”; Lisanne Skyler, “Getting to Know You”; and Cauleen Smith, “Drylongso.”
