A process that embraces all independent films.
The Independent Spirit Awards were created in 1986 to honor the best of independent filmmaking. The focus was on independent films made in the United States, since at that time the audience for these films—and the infrastructure for supporting them—was small. Film Independent (then called IFP/Los Angeles) wanted to put the spotlight on films that deserved bigger audiences, and to encourage filmmakers to continue making original films that challenged the status quo of mainstream filmmaking. We wanted to support our own tradition of artists that rivaled the foreign films, which at that time had a much larger following.
The goals of the Spirit Awards have essentially remained the same over the last 21 years, even though independent film now has a much larger following. But artists still struggle to get unconventional films made, and they need help in finding an audience—whether it's a micro-budgeted film or a film released by a major studio. The Spirit Awards strives to embrace this wide spectrum of independent films, which dictates a unique nomination process. We nominate films that may have never received theatrical distribution—films that are not even available on DVD—along with films that have had the benefit of being released on a few hundred screens around the country. The Nominating Committee, in reviewing almost 200 films, seeks to present the most original and innovative independent films—not just the best known or the most widely released independent films. No other awards show is dedicated to the totality of independent films.
The process for determining the Spirit Award nominations has, in essence, remained the same since the inception of the awards. It requires a Nominating Committee (now divided into three sub-committees) to watch almost 200 submitted films. Films qualify by playing at one of six designated film festivals (Los Angeles, New Directors/New Films, New York, Sundance, Telluride, and Toronto) or by playing one week in a commercial theater in the year of their submission. The Chair of the Nominating Committee (appointed by the Film Independent President) and the Film Independent Executive Director select committee members from several professional categories: director, writer, producer, actor, casting director, cinematographer, and film critic are mandatory categories. Additional professionals may be added, such as an editor or film programmer.
In past years, a single Nominating Committee selected all nominations in all categories, including documentary and foreign. As the number of categories increased — the Board of Directors added Best First Feature, the Cassavetes Award (for Best Feature under $500,000), and Best First Screenplay to guarantee more recognition for smaller films — and the number of film submissions increased, it became necessary to create sub-committees to review the documentary and foreign submissions.
The American Narrative Committee members spend about seven weeks watching the submitted films. Each committee member watches a minimum of 70 films (some members watch 80-90). They meet every two weeks to talk about the entire list of submitted films, and slowly narrow the list to a "short list" of 60 films. Every committee member watches every single one of the short list of films before the weekend of final deliberations. If, for any reason, a committee member is not able to watch every film, he would not be allowed to participate in the final deliberations, and his name would not appear in our publicized list of committee members. The process is incredibly rigorous — ask anyone who's participated in it!
The final deliberations for the American Narrative films take place over two full days beginning at 9:00 a.m. on a Saturday and Sunday morning. Each film/performance/work of cinematography is discussed in detail and members then vote their choices by secret ballot.
The Foreign and the Documentary Committees operate in a similar way, though the final deliberations do not require an entire weekend.
When the nominations are announced, the members of Film Independent and the members of IFP are able to view the nominated films through a special Spirit Awards site on Netflix. This partnership with Netflix is critical to the nominations process: without Netflix, members would not be able to view all the nominated films since many of them are no longer in theaters or may never have played in a theater. Members then cast their votes online or by mail-in ballot, and the winners are announced at the Spirit Awards ceremony.
Click here to read about the upcoming 2007 celebration.
