Awards Season 2015: Film Independent Spirit Awards Nominations

And so it starts.

Awards season has begun, folks. I apologise to the vast majority of our readers who probably have absolutely no interest whatsoever in this ridiculous pageant of backslapping and smug self-congratulation, but I like it. 

So the Film Independent Spirit Awards announced their nominations today. They virtually bookend the awards season as a whole- they are the first nominations to be announced and the awards ceremony is traditionally the day before the Oscars (so they will be handed out on Saturday 21st February).

The Film Independent Spirit Awards, as the name suggests, honours films made outside the major Hollywood studio system. Here are a selection of this year's nominees:

Best Film

Birdman

Boyhood

Love Is Strange

Selma

Whiplash

Best Director

Damien Chazelle (Whiplash)

Ava DuVernay (Selma)

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Birdman)

Richard Linklater (Boyhood)

David Zellner (Kumiko The Treasure Hunter)

Best Actor

Andre Benjamin (All Is By My Side)

Jake Gyllenhaal (Nightcrawler)

Michael Keaton (Birdman)

John Lithgow (Love Is Strange)

David Oyelowo (Selma)

Best Actress

Marion Cotillard (The Immigrant)

Rinko Kikuchi (Kumiko The Treasure Hunter)

Julianne Moore (Still Alice)

Jenny Slate (Obvious Child)

Tilda Swinton (Only Lovers Left Alive)

Best Supporting Actor

Riz Ahmed (Nightcrawler)

Ethan Hawke (Boyhood)

Alfred Molina (Love Is Strange)

Edward Norton (Birdman)

J.K. Simmons (Whiplash)

Best Supporting Actress

Patricia Arquette (Boyhood)

Jessica Chastain (A Most Violent Year)

Carmen Ejogo (Selma)

Emma Stone (Birdman)

Andrea Suarez Paz (Stand Clear Of The Closing Doors)

There's been a fair bit of overlap between these and the mainstream awards over the last few years, so they can act as a good barometer to see which way the land lies (at least early on). Last year, 12 Years A Slave (the eventual Best Picture Oscar winner) featured heavily in these awards and both Cate Blanchett and Matthew McConaughey were nominated for Blue Jasmine and Dallas Buyers Club. 

Birdman, about a washed-up actor (Keaton) who once played an iconic superhero, leads with six nominations, whilst Boyhood, Nightcrawler and Selma (about the Civil Rights movement with Oyelowo as Martin Luther King) all have five.

Congratulations to all nominees! (and commiserations to readers who don't give a monkey's about awards season, cause there'll be articles about it from now til the end of February!)

Tez