‘Spotlight’ tops a richly diverse Spirit Awards

“Spotlight” has already been chosen by the Spirits for this year’s Robert Altman Award, which honors a film’s ensemble cast.

“By honoring it, you’re making more people aware of it, and as more people are aware of it, more can be spared from a life of abuse”.

“Maybe it’s not the old classic Hollywood, but it is damn straight the Hollywood of today”, ‎said black trans star Mya Taylor of her L.A.-set film “Tangerine”, a streetwise buddy dramedy, as she presented a clip.

“Indie filmmaking isn’t about making money”, McKinnon said.

“There is transgender talent, there’s very handsome transgender talent”, Taylor told the audience.

The Spirit Awards, however, have rectified that wrong by nominating Beasts of no Nation several times over.

Attah, who beat out contenders including Jason Segel and Ben Mendelsohn, thanked everyone involved in the production of the film, from Elba and director Cary Fukunaga to the costume designers.

Elba did not reference #OscarsSoWhite in his acceptance speech – he instead paid deference to Netflix and‎ Attah.

“We’re going to cuss”. Beasts of no Nation has not been the awards-eating machine it was originally thought to be, but it deserves far more than it has gotten.

The Spirit Awards are voted on by members of Film Independent and require that the films be produced in the USA for less than $20 million.

In recent years, the Spirits have overlapped considerably with the Oscars, including the last two top winners: “Birdman” and “12 Years a Slave”. Tom McCarthy’s newspaper drama “Spotlight” is expected to be the big victor Saturday, where it will compete without the competition of larger budget Oscar favorites “The Revenant” or “The Big Short”, neither of which qualified for the Spirits. The ceremony included a series of parodies from McKinnon and Manjiani of “Room” and “Carol”, and an extended conceptual bit in which McKinnon played a slovenly “Anomalisa” Kickstarter funder who just came to the show to kiss Paul Dano.

For the second straight year, the Spirit Awards will be broadcast live on IFC. But McCarthy took the opportunity to celebrate the movie’s distinction as an independent film, released by indie distributor Open Road. And only one acting favorite, Brie Larson from “The Room”, is likely to win Saturday.

Nemes took a moment in accepting his prize to outline a forward-looking vision for independent cinema. The film was shot on an iPhone by director Sean Baker.