Independent Spirit Award Nominations: Fruit Fails, All is Lost Sails

The 2014 Film Independent Spirit Award nominations have been announced and with them came expected nominations and some shocking snubs. Oscar favorite 12 Years a Slave leads the pack this morning with seven nominations. Fruitvale Station, an expected favorite here, failed to make the grade with just a handful of nominations. Interestingly, while Fruitvale‘s Octavia Spencer was on hand to announce the nominations she was omitted from the Supporting Female category in favor of her co-star Melonie Diaz. The film also failed to garner a First Screenplay nomination, which would have seemed like a sure thing yesterday. The J.C. Chandor film All is Lost, starring a solo Robert Redford, surprised with nominations in the top categories as well as for Redford. Nebraska did very well, landing acting nominations in three categories as well as top nominations in Feature and Director.

Best Male Lead brought us six nominations today, doing very little to begin clearing up who will eventually be in Oscar’s top five.

Best Female Lead saw expected noms from Cate Blanchett and Julie Delpy but the surprising inclusion of Gaby Hoffman instead of Greta Gerwig (Frances Ha did make it into Best Feature, after all) probably left many gobsmacked.

The newly added Editing category gave us an eclectic bunch of smaller films and documentaries.

The awards race has now officially begun. What used to start with the National Board of Review and the New York Film Critics Circle begins this year with the Film Independent Spirit Awards nominations. Start your engines, ladies and gentlemen.

As per tradition, the Spirit Awards will announce their winners the day before the Oscars, on Saturday March 1, 2014.

Best Feature
12 Years a Slave,

All Is Lost

Francis Ha

Inside Llewyn Davis

Nebraska

Best Director
Shane Carruth, Upstream Color 

J.C. Chandor; All Is Lost

Steve McQueen, 12 Years a Slave

Jeff Nichols, Mud

Alexander Payne, Nebraska

Best Screenplay
Woody Allen, Blue Jasmine

Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke & Richard Linklater Before Midnight

Nicole Holofcener Enough Said

Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber, The Spectacular Now

John Ridley, 12 Years a Slave

Best First Feature
Blue Caprice 

Director/Producer: Alexandre Moors; Producers: Kim Jackson, Brian O’Carroll, Isen Robbins, Will Rowbotham, Ron Simons, Aimee Schoof, Stephen Tedeschi

Concussion

Director: Stacie Passon, Producer: Rose Troche;

Fruitvale Station 

Director: Ryan Coogler; Producers: Nina Yang Bongiovi, Forest Whitaker

Una Noche 

Director/Producer: Lucy Mulloy, Producers: Sandy Pérez Aguila, Maite Artieda, Daniel Mulloy, Yunior Santiago

Wadjda

Director: Haifaa Al Mansour, Producers: Gerhard Meixner, Roman Paul

Best First Screenplay
Lake Bell, In A World

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Don Jon

Bob Nelson, Nebraska

Jill Soloway, Afternoon Delight

Michael Starrbury, The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete

John Cassavetes Award (best feature made for under $500,000)
Computer Chess

Writer/Director: Andrew Bujalski, Producers: Houston King & Alex Lipschultz;

Crystal Fairy

Writer/Director: Sebastiàn Silva, Producers: Juan de Dios Larraín & Pablo Larraín;

Museum Hours

Writer/Director: Jem Cohen, Producers: Paolo Calamita & Gabriele Kranzelbinder;

Pit Stop

Writer/Director: Yen Tan, Writer: David Lowery, Producers: Jonathan Duffy, James M. Johnston, Eric Steele, Kelly Williams; 

This is Martin Bonner 

Writer/Director: Chad Hartigan, Producer: Cherie Saulter

Best Female Lead
Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine

Julie Delpy, Before Midnight

Gaby Hoffmann, Crystal Fairy

Brie Larson, Short Term 12

Shailene Woodley, The Spectacular Now

Best Male Lead
Bruce Dern, Nebraska

Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave

 Oscar Isaac, Inside Llewyn Davis

Michael B. Jordan, Fruitvale Station

Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club

Robert Redford, All Is Lost

Best Supporting Female
Melonie Diaz, Fruitvale Station

Sally Hawkins, Blue Jasmine

Lupita Nyong’o, 12 Years a Slave

Yolonda Ross, Go For Sisters

June Squibb, Nebraska 

Best Supporting Male
Michael Fassbender, 12 Years a Slave

Will Forte, Nebraska

James Gandolfini, Enough Said

Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club

Keith Stanfield, Short Term 12

Best Cinematography
Sean Bobbitt, 12 Years a Slave 

Benoit Debie, Spring Breakers

Bruno Delbonnel, Inside Llewyn Davis

Frank G. DeMarco, All Is Lost

Matthias Grunsky, Computer Chess

Best Editing
Shane Carruth & David Lowery, Upstream Color

Jem Cohen & Marc Vives, Museum Hours

Jennifer Lame, Frances Ha

Cindy Lee, Una Noche

Nat Sanders, Short Term 12

Best Documentary
20 Feet From Stardom 

Director/Producer: Morgan Neville, Producers: Gil Friesen & Caitrin Rogers

After Tiller

Directors/Producers: Martha Shane & Lana Wilson;

Gideon’s Army

Diretor/Producer: Dawn Porter, Producer: Julie Goldman;

The Act of Killing

Director/Producer: Joshua Oppenheimer, Producers: Joram Ten Brink, Christine Cynn, Anne Köhncke, Signe Byrge Sørensen, Michael Uwemedimo,

The Square

Director: Jehane Noujaim, Producer: Karim Amer

Best International Film
A Touch of Sin, (China), Director: Jia Zhang-Ke

Blue is the Warmest Color, (France), Director: Abdellatif Kechiche

Gloria, (Chile), Director: Sebastián Lelio

The Great Beauty, (Italy), Director: Paolo Sorrentino

The Hunt, (Denmark), Director: Thomas Vinterberg

17^th Annual Piaget Producers Award 
Toby Halbrooks & James M. Johnston, Jacob Jaffke, Andrea Roa, Frederick Thornton

20^th Annual Someone To Watch Award 
My Sister’s Quinceañera, Director: Aaron Douglas Johnston Newlyweeds, Director: Shaka King

The Foxy Merkins, Director: Madeline Olnek

19^th Annual Stella Artois Truer Than Fiction Award 
Kalyanee Mam, A River Changes Course 

Jason Osder, Let the Fire Burn

Stephanie Spray & Pacho Velez, Manakamana 

Robert Altman Award 
Mud 

Director: Jeff Nichols, Casting Director: Francine Maisler, Ensemble Cast:  Joe Don Baker, Jacob Lofland, Matthew McConaughey, Ray McKinnon, Sarah Paulson, Michael Shannon, Sam Shepard, Tye Sheridan, Paul Sparks, Bonnie Sturdivant, Reese Witherspoon

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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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