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
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