Innovative Movie Talent Shines Once Again With The Film Independent Spirit Awards Nominations

In case you somehow missed it, the 2018 Film Independent Spirit Awards announced their nominees, presented by Lily Collins and Tessa Thompson, an event growing in stature and significance each year. Not only is the roll-out of such exceptional work from the indie film scene an integrated part of the Academy Awards build-up, it is also an exciting, essential recognition of the diverse, unique talent on show.

Oscarologists are likely to get their knickers in a twist over both the films hitting big in many categories, as well as those missing out on several, or not showing up at all. In the meantime, though, let’s continue to celebrate and embrace the innovative work of independent cinema, with these nominations and beyond. 

BEST FEATURE

Call Me By Your Name
Lady Bird
Get Out
The Florida Project
The Rider

BEST FIRST FEATURE

Columbus
Ingrid Goes West
Menashe
Oh Lucy!
Patti Cake$

JOHN CASSAVETES AWARD

Dayveon
A Ghost Story
Life and nothing more
Most Beautiful Island
The Transfiguration

BEST DIRECTOR

Sean Baker (The Florida Project)
Jonas Carpignano (A Ciambra)
Luca Guadagnino (Call Me by Your Name)
Jordan Peele (Get Out)
Benny Safdie, Josh Safdie (Good Time)
Chloé Zhao (The Rider)

BEST SCREENPLAY

Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird)
Azazel Jacobs (The Lovers)
Martin McDonagh (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
Jordan Peele (Get Out)
Mike White (Beatriz at Dinner)

BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY

Kris Avedis, Kyle Espeleta, Jesse Wakeman (Donald Cried)
Emily V. Gordon, Kumail Nanjiani (The Big Sick)
Ingrid Jungermann (Women Who Kill)
Kogonada (Columbus)
David Branson Smith, Matt Spicer (Ingrid Goes West)

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Thimios Bakatakis (The Killing of a Sacred Deer)
Elisha Christian (Columbus)
Hélène Louvart (Beach Rats)
Sayombhu Mukdeeprom (Call Me by Your Name)
Joshua James Richards (The Rider)

BEST EDITING

Ronald Bronstein, Benny Safdie (Good Time)
Walter Fasano (Call Me by Your Name)
Alex O’Flinn (The Rider)
Gregory Plotkin (Get Out)
Tatiana S. Riegel (I, Tonya)

BEST FEMALE LEAD

Salma Hayek (Beatriz at Dinner)
Frances McDormand (Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri)
Margot Robbie (I, Tonya)
Saoirse Ronan (Lady Bird)
Shinobu Terajima (Oh Lucy!)
Regina Williams (Life and nothing more)

BEST MALE LEAD

Timothée Chalamet (Call Me by Your Name)
Harris Dickinson (Beach Rats)
James Franco (The Disaster Artist)
Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out)
Robert Pattinson (Good Time) 

BEST SUPPORTING FEMALE

Holly Hunter (The Big Sick)
Allison Janney (I, Tonya)
Laurie Metcalf (Lady Bird)
Lois Smith (Marjorie Prime)
Taliah Lennice Webster (Good Time)

BEST SUPPORTING MALE

Nnamdi Asomugha (Crown Heights)
Armie Hammer (Call Me By Your Name)
Barry Keoghan (The Killing of a Sacred Deer)
Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
Bennie Safdie (Good Time)

ROBERT ALTMAN AWARD

Mudbound (Director: Dee Rees; Casting Directors: Billy Hopkins, Ashley Ingram; Ensemble Cast: Jonathan Banks, Mary J. Blige, Jason Clarke, Garrett Hedlund, Jason Mitchell, Rob Morgan, Carey Mulligan)

BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM

BPM (Beats Per Minute), France (Robin Campillo)
A Fantastic Woman, Chile (Sebastián Lelio)
I Am Not a Witch, Zambia (Rungano Nyoni)
Lady Macbeth, U.K. (William Oldroyd)
Loveless, Russia (Andrey Zvyagintsev)

BEST DOCUMENTARY

The Departure (Lana Wilson)
Faces Places (Agnés Varda, JR; Rosalie Varda)
Last Men in Aleppo (Feras Fayyad; Kareem Abeed, Søeren Steen Jespersen, Stefan Kloos)
Motherland (Ramona S. Diaz; Rey Cuerdo)
Quest (Jonathan Olshefski; Sabrina Schmidt Gordon)

BONNIE AWARD – recognizes mid-career female directors with a $50,000 unrestricted grant.

So Yong Kim
Lynn Shelton
Chloé Zhao

JEEP TRUER THAN FICTION AWARD – presented to an emerging director of non-fiction features who has not yet received significant recognition, includes a $25,000 unrestricted grant funded by the Jeep brand.

Shevaun Mizrahi (director of Distant Constellation)
Jonathan Olshefski (director of Quest)
Jeff Unay (director of The Cage Fighter)

KIEHL’S SOMEONE TO WATCH AWARD – recognizes a talented filmmaker of singular vision who has not yet received appropriate recognition, includes a $25,000 unrestricted grant funded by Kiehl’s Since 1851.

Amman Abbasi (director of Dayveon)
Justin Chon (director of Gook)
Kevin Phillips (director of Super Dark Times)

PIAGET PRODUCERS AWARD – honors emerging producers who, despite highly limited resources, demonstrate the creativity, tenacity and vision required to produce quality, independent films, includes a $25,000 unrestricted grant funded by Piaget.

Giulia Caruso & Ki Jin Kim
Ben LeClair
Summer Shelton

For Your Consideration: Beach Rats, Best Cinematography, Helene Louvart

What makes great cinematography? Is it colorful lighting? Is it long tracking shots?

Well, while those things do help create a visually intriguing experience, what ultimately makes great cinematography is its ability to act as a form of storytelling. It is up to the camera to try and translate the words that aren’t written in the script. That is what cinematographer Helene Louvart does in spades with her work in Beach Rats.

Beach Rats deals with a young Brooklyn male named Frankie (Harris Dickinson) who spends his days vaping and hanging with his juvenile friends on the beach. But at nighttime, he chats with older men online to engage in sexual activity, questioning his sexuality in the process.

The constant duality that Frankie wrestles with is perfectly demonstrated by Helene Louvart’s camera lens. In the scenes that take place at nighttime, the camera is always closing in on Frankie, capturing the feeling of him being in a tight, dark closet to demonstrate how he’s “in the closet.” But during the scenes that take place during the day on the beach, the camera is much farther apart and gives Frankie more room to breathe. Yet the bright daytime sequences prove how Frankie’s life out in the open betrays his confused, inner self that is trapped inside a dark closet.

Even though colorful lighting doesn’t always define great cinematography, there is one key scene where color becomes integral. When Frankie engages in physical intimacy with another male, the scene is shot with red lighting. The red captures the fiery sensuality of that one scene while also signaling the conflict between him and everybody else around him. Particularly, his friends who he fears may not accept him and his girlfriend.

Compare that to the work by Roger Deakins who is the likely frontrunner to win Best Cinematography for Blade Runner 2049. That film is very colorful to watch and makes the nearly 3-hour film impossible to look away from. But, without any disrespect to Roger Deakins who is a titan amongst cinematographers, all those colors being shown just make bright colors without much meaning behind them. He may be likely to finally win his overdue Oscar after losing 13 times but Helene Louvart’s work should be a challenger to his.

A nomination for Helene Louvart would also mean a great deal because in the Academy’s soon-to-be 90 year history, she would be the first woman ever to be nominated for Best Cinematography. When it comes to women being represented behind the camera, the conversation is often dominated by the gender divide between male and female directors and understandably so. But female cinematographers never get proper credit either. Even when there have been legitimate cases for female DP’s to get nominated like Maryse Alberti for both Creed and The Wrestler, Natasha Braier for The Neon Demon, and even Charlotte Bruus Christensen for The Hunt, they sadly never had a chance to enter the Oscar conversation.

Out of the cinematography from this year, Helene Louvart’s work is easily the best and also the most lyrical and she is deserving of historical Oscar recognition.