Brokeback Mountain, Capote,Good Night, And Good Luck, TheSquid And The Whale and The ThreeBurials Of Melquiades Estrada willvie for best feature honours at Film Independent's 2006 Independent SpiritAwards on March 4.

Noah Baumbach's TheSquid And The Whale leads the packwith six nominations for Samuel Goldwyn Films including best director andscreenplay for Baumbach and best male and female leads for Jeff Daniels andLaura Linney.

The sterling effort bySamuel Goldwyn is matched by Warner Independent Pictures (WiP) for GoodNight, And Good Luck, Duck Season and Paradise Now, and bettered only by Magnolia Pictures, whichgarnered seven nominations for a rich slate the featured Enron: The SmartestGuys In The Room, Nine Lives, Keane, and The War Within.

Elsewhere Focus Features' BrokebackMountain earned four nominationsincluding best director for Ang Lee and best lead actor for Heath ledger. Alsoon four were Sony Pictures Classics' Capote and The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada, and WiP's Good Night, And Good Luck.

Best foreign film nomineesare Cristi Puiu's The Death Of Mr Lazarescu (Romania), Fernando Eimbcke's Duck Season (Mexico), Fatih Akin's Head-On (Germany/Turkey), Hany Abu-Assad's Paradise Now (Palestine/Netherlands/Germany/France), and Jun Ichikawa'sTony Takitani (Japan).

The best actor stakes setsup a very strong field of Jeff Daniels for The Squid And The Whale, Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote, Terrence Howard for Hustle & Flow, Heath Ledger for Brokeback Mountain, and David Strathairn for Good Night, And GoodLuck. Curiously omitted was DamianLewis, the star of Lodge Kerrigan's Keane, who is considered by many to have given the best performance of theyear.

Best actress nominees areFelicity Huffman for Transamerica,Dina Korzun for Forty Shades Of Blue, Laura Linney for The Squid And The Whale, S Epatha Merkerson for Lackawanna Blues, and Cyndi Williams for Room.

Ang Lee will contest thebest director category for Brokeback Mountain, along with George Clooney for Good Night, AndGood Luck, Gregg Araki for MysteriousSkin, Rodrigo Garcia for NineLives, and Noah Baumbach for TheSquid And The Whale

Paul Haggis' Crash heads upthe best first feature category and goes head-to-head with Lackawanna Blues, Miranda July's Me And You And Everyone We Know, Mike Mills' Thumbsucker, and Duncan Tucker's Transamerica.

In the John CassavetesAward, presented to the bestfeature under $500,000, the nominees are Rian Johnson's Brick, Mora Stephens' Conventioneers, Mark Banning's Jellysmoke, Jay Duplass' The Puffy Chair, and Kyle Henry's

Room.

"These nominationsspotlight filmmakers whose screenplays are stronger than ever, who are takingon riskier subjects, who have used technological innovations to great effect,and who have gone far beyond the more typical, personal, coming-of-age filmsthat dominated independent filmmaking several years ago," Film Independentexecutive director Dawn Hudson said.

"The filmmakers and actors weren't afraid to addresspolitical, social, racial, and moral issues while making terrificallycompelling movies."

To be eligible forconsideration submitted films must have played at least one week in acommercial theatre during the 2005 calendar year or have played at one of thefollowing six film festivals: the Los Angeles Film Festival, New Directors/NewFilms, New York, Sundance, Telluride, or Toronto.

Voting members of FilmIndependent and IFP receive screeners free of charge through Netflix on aspecially created Spirit Awards Members Viewing Site."

The 12th annual IFC/AcuraSomeone to Watch Award finalists are Cavite directors Ian Gamazon and Neill Dela Llana, PoliceBeat director Robinson Devor, andThe Puffy Chair director JayDuplass.

Finalists in the 10thannual Truer Than Fiction Award for emerging documentary directors are RachelBoynton for Our Brand Is Crisis,Garrett Scott and Ian Olds for Occupation: Dreamland, Mark Becker for Romantico, and Thomas Allen Harris for Twelve Disciples OfNelson Mandela.

The 9th AnnualAMC/American Express Producers Award finalists are Capote and Monsoon Wedding producer Caroline Baron, Brick and Conversations With Other Women producer Ram Bergman, and Mike S Ryan, who produced Junebug and Palindromes.

Best feature

Brokeback Mountain Producers Diana Ossana, James Schamus

Capote Producers Caroline Baron, William Vince, MichaelOhoven

Good Night, And GoodLuck Producer Grant Heslov

The Squid And The Whale Producers Wes Anderson, Peter Newman, CharlesCorwin, and Clara Markowicz

The Three Burials ofMelquiades Estrada Producers MichaelFitzgerald and Tommy Lee Jones

Best Director

Ang Lee BrokebackMountain

George Clooney GoodNight, And Good Luck

Gregg Araki MysteriousSkin

Rodrigo Garcia NineLives

Noah Baumbach The SquidAnd The Whale

Best First Feature

Crash

Dir: Paul Haggis. Producers:Cathy Schulman, Don Cheadle, Bob Yari, Mark R Harris, Bobby Moresco, and PaulHaggis

Lackawanna Blues

Dir: George C Wolfe.Producer: Nellie Nugiel

Me And You And EveryoneWe Know

Dir: Miranda July.Producer: Gina Kwon

Thumbsucker

Dir: Mike Mills.Producers: Anthony Bregman and Bob Stephenson

Transamerica

Dir: Duncan Tucker.Producers: Rene Bastian, Sebastian Dungan and Linda Moran

John Cassavetes Award

(Awarded to the bestfeature made for under $500,000)

Brick

Dir/scr: Rian Johnson.Producers: Ram Bergman and Mark G Mathis

Conventioneers

Dir: Mora Stephens.Producer: Joel Viertel. Scr: Mora Stephens and Joel Viertel

Jellysmoke

Dir/scr/producer: MarkBanning

The Puffy Chair

Dir: Jay Duplass.Producer: Mark Duplass. Scr: Mark Duplass and Jay Duplass

Room

Dir/Scr: Kyle Henry.Producers: Allen Bain, Darren Goldberg and Jesse Scolaro

Best Screenplay

Ayad Akhtar, JosephCastelo and Tom Glynn The War Within

Guillermo Arriaga TheThree Burials of Melquiades Estrada

Noah Baumbach The SquidAnd The Whale

Dan Futterman Capote

Rodrigo Garcia NineLives

Best First Screenplay

Kenneth Hanes FixingFrank

Miranda July Me And YouAnd Everyone We Know

Angus MacLachlan Junebug

Sabina Murray TheBeautiful Country

Duncan Tucker Transamerica

Best Supporting Female

Amy Adams Junebug

Maggie Gyllenhaal HappyEndings

Allison Janney Our VeryOwn

Michelle Williams BrokebackMountain

Robin Wright Penn NineLives

Best Supporting Male

Firdous Bamji The WarWithin

Matt Dillon Crash

Jesse Eisenberg TheSquid And The Whale

Barry Pepper The ThreeBurials Of Melquiades Estrada

Jeffrey Wright BrokenFlowers

Best Female Lead

Felicity Huffman Transamerica

Dina Korzun FortyShades Of Blue

Laura Linney The SquidAnd The Whale

S Epatha Merkerson LackawannaBlues

Cyndi Williams Room

Best Male Lead

Jeff Daniels The SquidAnd The Whale

Philip Seymour Hoffman Capote

Terrence Howard Hustle& Flow

Heath Ledger BrokebackMountain

David Strathairn GoodNight, And Good Luck

Best Cinematography

Robert Elswit GoodNight, And Good Luck

John Foster Keane

Adam Kimmel Capote

Chris Menges The ThreeBurials Of Melquiades Estrada

Harris Savides LastDays

Best Foreign Film

The Death Of MrLazarescu (Romania) Dir: Cristi Puiu

Duck Season (Mexico) Dir: Fernando Eimbcke

Head-On (Germany/Turkey) Dir: Fatih Akin

Paradise Now (Palestine/Netherlands/Germany/France) Dir: HanyAbu-Assad

Tony Takitani (Japan) Dir: Jun Ichikawa

Best Documentary

Enron: The SmartestGuys In The Room Dir: Alex Gibney

Grizzly Man Dir: Werner Herzog

La Sierra Dirs: Scott Dalton and Margarita Martinez

Romantico Dir: Mark Becker

Sir! No Sir! Dir: David Zeiger