Carol leads Independent Spirit Award nominations

British star Idris Elba is nominated for best supporting actor for his role as the ruthless commandant in Beasts of No Nation, which is also up for best feature along with Spotlight, animated film Anomalisa and micro-budget film Tangerine.

Awards will be given to artists in a number of categories, including Best Feature, Best First Feature, Best First Screenplay, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Male Lead, Best Female Lead, Best Cinematography, Best global Film and Best Documentary, to name a few.

The awards ceremony, which honors independent films, has nominated transgender actresses Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and Mya Taylor from the critical darling Tangerine.

The lesbian romance “Carol” led the field for Film Independent’s Spirit Awards with six nominations on Tuesday while the Catholic Church sex abuse tale “Spotlight” and the Netflix war thriller “Beasts of No Nation” picked up five each in the opening of the Hollywood awards season. It will also be the recipient of the Robert Altman Award, which is given to the director, casting director and ensemble cast.

While diversity in choices prevailed in most categories, the nominees for best director were all males – Fukunaga, Haynes, Baker (“Tangerine”), Duke Johnson and Charlie Kaufman (“Anomalisa”), Tom McCarthy (“Spotlight”) and David Robert Mitchell (“It Follows”).

Heller also received a best first screenplay nomination for the coming-of-age story and actress Bel Powley was recognized for her leading performance. As far as I can determine, no trasngender performers have ever previously been recognized in this way by the Spirit Awards or Oscars. “It’s an astonishingly strong group of films and performances this year and we look forward to celebrating them all at the Spirit Awards”.

This year, numerous Spirit acting categories reflect a less mainstream lineup.

Attah will compete against Christopher Abbott for “James White”, Ben Mendelsohn for “Mississippi Grind”, Jason Segel for “The End of the Tour” and Koudous Seihon for “Mediterranea”.

The ceremony will take place on February 27, the night before the Academy Awards and air live on IFC.