Spirit Awards Grants
SOMEONE TO WATCH AWARD
The Someone to Watch Award recognizes a talented filmmaker of singular vision who has not yet received appropriate recognition. Past winners include Marc Forster (Everything Put Together), Andrew Bujalski (Funny Ha Ha), and Larry Fessenden (Habit).
2010 Acura Someone to Watch Award Winner
Kyle Patrick Alvarez
Easier With Practice, Director
Kyle Patrick Alvarez is a 26 year-old, Los Angeles based writer/director. In 2010 he was nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards and won the prestigious Someone to Watch Award. His writing and directorial debut film, Easier with Practice, has won numerous awards including the Grand Jury Prize at CineVegas and Best New International Feature at the Edinburgh Film Festival and played in the more than 40 film festivals around the world. The film received theatrical and DVD distribution early this year. He is currently in the process of financing his next feature, C.O.G., which will be the first film made out of a David Sedaris essay.
Alvarez graduated cum laude from the University of Miami in 2005 with degrees in Motion Picture Production and English Literature. He spent his first year in the entertainment industry working directly for legendary director and actor Warren Beatty.
2009 Acura Someone to Watch Award Winner
Ramin Bahrani
Chop Shop, Director
Born and raised in America, Ramin Bahrani received his BA from Columbia
University in New York City before moving to his parents' homeland of
Iran for three years, where he made his student thesis film Strangers
(2000). Bahrani then lived in Paris before returning to the States to
begin work on his first feature film, Man Push Cart (2005). The
film premiered at Venice Film Festival (2005) and screened at
Sundance Film Festival (2006) before being released theatrically
worldwide to critical acclaim. Winning over ten international prizes,
Man Push Cart was also nominated for three Independent Spirit Awards
(2007). Bahrani`s second feature film Chop Shop (2007) premiered
at Cannes Film Festival (2007); Le Monde declared it ''the
major revelation of the Director`s Fortnight.'' Chop Shop next
screened at Toronto Film Festival (2007) and Berlin Film Festival
(2008), and was released theatrically in America in early 2008. Bahrani
is currently in post-production on his third feature film, Goodbye Solo.
TRUER THAN FICTION AWARD
The Truer Than Fiction Award is presented to an emerging director of non-fiction features who has not yet received significant attention. Past winners include Adele Horne (The Tailenders), Garrett Scott and Ian Olds (Occupation: Dreamland), Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski (Born into Brothels), and Errol Morris (Fast, Cheap & Out of Control).
2010 Chaz and Roger Ebert Truer Than Fiction Award Award Winner
Bill Ross and Turner Ross
45365, Directors
45365 explores the congruities of daily life in an American town. It is the Ross Brothers' first feature-length film.
Bill Ross' documentary, fiction, and multi-media short films have been featured at film festivals throughout the world. He works as an editor in Los Angeles.
Turner Ross has worked in the art departments of films produced by 20th Century Fox, Universal, Disney, FX, and Cinemotion. He lives in Santa Fe, NM.
2009 IFC Truer Than Fiction Award Award Winner
Laura Dunn
The Unforeseen, Director
Executive produced by Terrence Malick and Robert Redford, The Unforeseen is a feature documentary about water wars in Texas.
Laura Dunn started making documentaries in response to her undergraduate experience at Yale University. Through a chronicle of labor strikes on campus, The Subtext of a Yale Education (1999) examines the corporatization of higher education. Dunn then returned to her birthplace to make Green (2000), a sobering look at environmental racism along the Mississippi River petrochemical corridor, a.k.a. "Cancer Alley". Other work includes experimental films Baby (1999), a personal take on population issues, and Become The Sky (2002), an ecological map of power in Texas. Dunn's work has screened internationally at film festivals, art galleries, theaters, universities, churches, and union halls. Honors include a Rockefeller Media Arts Fellowship, Student Academy Award, and Yale`s Trumbull College Fine Arts Prize. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband and their spirited toddler. The Unforeseen is her first feature film.
PRODUCERS AWARD
The Producers Award honors emerging producers who, despite highly limited resources, demonstrate the creativity, tenacity, and vision required to produce quality independent films. Past winners include Gina Kwon (Me and You and Everyone We Know), Caroline Baron (Capote), and Effie Brown (Real Women Have Curves).
2010 Piaget Producers Award Winner
Karin Chien
The Exploding Girl and Santa Mesa, Producer
Karin Chien is an independent film producer based in New York City. She has produced seven feature films including The Exploding Girl, The Motel, and Robot Stories. She is currently in production in Beirut on Circumstance and in post-production on Untitled P. Benoit Project. Karin is the president of dGenerate Films, which distributes the best of contemporary Chinese independent cinema. She also recently curated the Chinatown Film Project, an inaugural film exhibition for the Museum of Chinese in America.
2009 Piaget Producers Award Winner
Heather Rae
Heather Rae has worked in a producing capacity on more than a dozen
documentaries and half dozen features throughout her twenty years in
the film industry. She produced Frozen River, which stars Melissa Leo, Misty Upham, and Marc Boone Jr. Frozen River premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, won the Grand Jury Prize, and was acquired by Sony Pictures Classics. Frozen River
was nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Actress and Best
Screenplay, won the Gotham Award for Best Picture and Best Actress, and
was nominated for seven Spirit Awards resulting in a Best Actress win
for Melissa Leo and the Producer of the Year for Rae. Additionally she
produced Ibid, starring Christian Campbell, which premiered at
the 2008 South By Southwest film festival and internationally at the
Munich Film Festival, where it was nominated for the prestigious
CineVision Award.
Rae is currently producing The Dry Land starring America Ferrera, Wilmer Valderrama, Jason Ritter, and Melissa Leo, which will be financed by the newly formed Maya Entertainment and released in the Fall of 2009. Sergio Aguero (y tu mama tambien, Quarantine) is executive producing alongside Ferrera.
Previously Rae produced and directed Trudell, which premeired at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival and played Tribeca, SilverDocs, Full Frame, Seattle, and over 100 other festivals. Trudell was released theatrically by Balcony Releasing and played over 60 markets before airing on PBS' Independent Lens and the Sundance Channel. Trudell won numerous awards including a Special Jury Prize from the Seattle Film Festival and Best Documentary from the American Indian Film Festival.
Rae is producing and directing Family:The First Circle, a documentary about the foster care system; the project received the Sundance Documentary Grant and was selected fro Tribeca All Access, both in 2008. Rae received the ReNew Media Rockefeller Award for the project as well. Rae produced Out of the Blue:A Film about Life and Football for ESPN, and Hart Sharp about the Boise State University Football team and their 2006 undefeated season leading up to the Fiesta Bowl victory.
For six years Rae ran the Native Program at the Sundance Institute and was a programmer for the Sundance Film Festival. After leaving Sundance in 2001 she went on to work for Winter Films as Senior Vice President of Production. For the past seven years she has worked independently as a director and producer, working on projects such as Sawtooth, starring Adam Beach, Gary Farmer, and Udo Kier; Water Flowing Together, about master ballet dancer Jock Soto; and ShiMasani with director Blackhorse Lowe. She co-produced Backroads, directed by Shirley Cheechoo, which premiered at Sundance in 2000.
Rae has worked as an advisor or consultant to the Sundance Institute, ITVS, the Rockefeller Foundation, National Geographic, PBS, Film Independent, Independent Feature Project, and other media companies and organizations.
Prior to her years at Sundance, Rae produced such documentary films as CBS's 500 Nations, Turner Broadcasting's The Native Americans, and PBS' Storytellers of the Pacific. She produced the behind-the-scenes making of Smoke Signals for the Sundance Channel and was an Associate Producer on Silent Tears,
directed by Cheechoo. Rae owns downtown arts collective The Muse
Building. She is Cherokee and a mother of three. She and her family
reside in Boise, Idaho.
Neil Kopp
Paranoid Park and Old Joy, Producer
Neil Kopp is a film producer based in Portland, Oregon, where he was
born and raised. Kopp was the recipient of the 2008 Independent Spirit
Awards' Producers Award. He is the producer of Kelly Reichardt's two
Portland-based features Old Joy and Wendy and Lucy,
and Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park. Wendy and Lucy
premiered at Cannes in May 2008 in the Un Certain Regard section.
For more information on the Spirit Awards visit the official site.
To see a full list of the nominees and grant winners from previous years visit:
The Spirit Awards Archive
