Aidy Bryant Will Return to Host 40th Film Independent Spirit Awards

Film Independent, the nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering independence and inclusivity in visual storytelling, announced this morning that, following a highly successful and memorable debut last year, comedian Aidy Bryant will once again take the stage to host the Film Independent Spirit Awards.

Last year, Celine Song’s Past Lives took the top awards for Best Feature and Best Director, while The Last of Us and Beef both took home two awards on the television side. Bryant referred to the show as the “bisexual Oscars” and, at one point, donned an oversized t-shirt dedicated to May December‘s Charles Melton.

Honoring the best of independent cinema and television, the 2025 Spirit Awards will also mark the 40th anniversary of the awards. Celebrating four decades of excellence, these awards serve as the cornerstone fundraiser for Film Independent’s year-round initiatives.
 
The awards nominees will be announced on Wednesday, December 4, 2024 at 7:00 am PT at filmindependent.org. Winners will be revealed at the awards show on Saturday, February 22, 2025 and will be streamed live on the IMDb and Film Independent YouTube channels, and across other social platforms, beginning at 2:00 pm PT.
 

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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), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) 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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