30th Independent Spirit Awards: 'Birdman' wins Best Picture

One day before the Oscars ceremony on the morning of February 23 (Vietnam time), Birdman by director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu won the Best Picture award at the 30th Independent Spirit Awards.

In addition, the film also brought Michael Keaton the award for Best Actor and Best Cinematography (Emmanuel Lubezki).

Meanwhile, Richard Linklater won Best Director for Boyhood. However, he was not present at the awards ceremony and the film's star, Ethan Hawke, accepted the award on his behalf.

Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu with the Independent Spirit Award for Best Film

Nightcrawler, the dark drama from director and screenwriter Dan Gilroy, won Best First Film and Best Screenplay.

Citizenfour, a documentary about Edward Snowden, won Best Documentary, while the Polish black-and-white drama Ida won Best Foreign Language Film. Incidentally, both films are strong Oscar contenders.

The Independent Spirit Awards are voted on by Film Independent, a group of filmmakers, experts and film lovers, from films made with budgets of $20 million or less.

As Hollywood increasingly embraces blockbusters, the Independent Spirit Awards, once considered a lowly pre-Oscar appetizer, have increasingly emerged as the centerpiece of awards season, or at least an idealized one. This year, for the first time, they will be televised.

Actress Julianne Moore won the Best Actress award for Still Alice.

Last year, the actors and film 12 Years a Slave won the Independent Spirit Award at the Oscars. This year, it looks like that will be the case again, with Oscar heavyweights Julianne Moore (Still Alice), JK Simmons (Whiplash) and Patricia Arquette (Boyhood) all winning Independent Spirit Awards.

Although the Independent Spirit Awards have become more lavish in recent years, including costume shows, the event is still primarily about recognizing and honoring modestly budgeted films that often struggle to find distribution.

“We shot this movie in 23 days on a $4 million budget,” said Moore, who stars in Still Alice. “I brought my own food, my own costumes, and I begged my co-star Alec Baldwin to do the same.”

According to Thethaovanhoa.vn