Anora wins best movie, director and actor at Film Independent Spirit Awards

Sean Baker's Anora won best film, best director and best actor for Mikey Madison at the Film Independent Spirit Awards on Saturday in what could be a preview of next Sunday's Academy Awards: The film about a Brooklyn sex worker and her whirlwind affair with a Russian oligarch's son has emerged in recent weeks as an awards season front-runner.

The Spirit Awards — held in a beachside tent in Santa Monica, Calif. — is the shaggier, more irreverent sister to the Academy Awards, celebrating the best in independent film and television.

In accepting the directing prize, Baker spoke passionately about the difficulty of making independent films in an industry that is no longer able to fund riskier projects. He said indies are in danger of becoming calling card films — movies made only as a means to get hired for bigger projects.

"The system has to change because this is simply unsustainable," Baker said to enthusiastic applause. "We shouldn't be barely getting by."

Anora's best film competition included Jane Schoenbrun's psychological horror I Saw the TV Glow; RaMell Ross's adaptation of Colson Whitehead's Nickel Boys; Greg Kwedar's incarceration drama Sing Sing; and Coralie Fargeat's body horror The Substance.

This year had several other possible Oscar winners celebrating. Kieran Culkin, considered an Oscar favourite, won the supporting performance award for A Real Pain. His director, co-star and writer Jesse Eisenberg won best screenplay for the film about two cousins embarking on a Holocaust tour in Poland.

Culkin was not there to accept — he also missed his BAFTA win last weekend to tend to a family member — but other Oscar nominees like Madison, Demi Moore, Sebastian Stan and Colman Domingo were.

Madison won the top acting prize over Moore at the BAFTAs last weekend, as well, and stopped on Saturday to pet Moore's dog Pilaf on the way to the stage. Acting categories for the Spirit Awards are gender neutral and include 10 spots each, meaning Madison and Moore were up against Oscar nominees like Domingo (Sing Sing) and Stan (The Apprentice).

The documentary prize went to No Other Land, the lauded film by a Palestinian-Israeli collective about the destruction of a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank that doesn't have distribution. It's also a strong Oscar contender in a competitive category. The filmmakers were not in attendance to accept the award.

Flow, the wordless animated Latvian cat film, won best international film. At the Oscars, it's competing in both the international film and animation categories.

While the Spirit Award winners don't always sync up with the academy, they can often reflect a growing consensus as in the Everything Everywhere All At Once year. The awards limit eligibility to productions with budgets of $30 million US or less, meaning more expensive Oscar nominees like Wicked and Dune: Part Two were not in the running.

Sean Wang accepted best first feature and best first screenplay prizes for Didi. He said it was special to be sharing the stage with one of his stars, Joan Chen, who was also nominated for the same award 25 years ago for Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl.

The Netflix phenomenon Baby Reindeer also picked up several prizes, for actors Richard Gadd, Jessica Gunning and Nava Mau.

Mau, who is trans, spoke about the importance of actors sticking together "as we move into this next chapter."

"We don't know what is going to happen, but we do know our power," Mau said. "We are the people and our labour is everything."

Maisy Stella, the Canadian star of coming-of-age comedy My Old Ass, took home the breakthrough performance award.