2021 Independent Spirit Awards adding TV categories for the first time

The Independent Spirit Awards are expanding to include five new television categories for its 2021 awards show, Film Independent announced Tuesday. This is the first year the Spirit Awards have included TV in their yearly film awards lineup.

The new categories include Best New Scripted Series, Best New Non-Scripted or Documentary Series, Best Male Performance, Best Female Performance and Best Ensemble Cast, and submissions for the awards are now open. No word on the specific eligibility period, whether they will follow the Emmys September-June calendar or the calendar year approach that the Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild take.

The Early Deadline for Spirit Award submissions is October 13, 2020, the Regular Deadline is October 27, 2020, the Final Deadline is November 17, 2020 and the extended Film Independent Member Deadline is November 20, 2020. The nominations will be announced on Tuesday, January 26, 2021. 

“The independent, diverse creators we’ve supported for decades now straddle the feature and episodic worlds,” said Board Chair Mary Sweeney. “Our mission supports and celebrates visual storytellers wherever they practice their craft. The addition of TV Spirit Awards recognizes this expansion by celebrating diverse independent, creative voices across platforms.”

“The Film Independent nominations process is a unique and inspiring one,” said Setu Raval, Associate Director of Nominations. “It is an inclusive gathering of filmmakers, programmers, critics and performers with the common goal to curate and celebrate bold, diverse, authentic and innovative visual storytelling. We are excited to open the 2021 Spirit Awards Submissions.”

The 2021 ceremony, which always takes place the day before the Oscars, has been pushed along with the rest of the awards season calendar and will take place on April 24, 2021 and air exclusively on IFC.

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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