Guests at the 2025 Indie Spirit Awards Forecast a ‘Messy' Future for Independent Film
Arriving on a busy blue carpet for a gray day at the beach, guests at the 2025 Indie Spirit Awards agreed: It's time to Make the Movies Messy Again.
Inside the ceremony tent, host Aidy Bryant put it perfectly when she said, 'It's been a great year for film and a bad year for human life.' Hundreds of the most important decision-makers and visionary artists championing creative independence today gathered in Santa Monica, California on Saturday to honor the best in boundary-breaking film and TV.
More from IndieWire
The Sound of 'Severance' Is Way More Than Office Space
'Dreams (Sex Love)' Review: A Teen's Sexual Awakening Challenges Perceptions in Final Film of Norwegian Humanist Trilogy
'Anora' and 'Baby Reindeer' won the most categories in several tight races, but the show's main source of dramatic tension came from the countless news items surrounding a tough awards season. From fraught talk of cultural fascism to economic critiques of the entertainment industry, honorees and their peers predicted an uncertain but fiery future for filmmakers, cast, and crew. The word 'messy' came up in-conversation with IndieWire a lot.
'We're getting our butts kicked right now, but we're going to win in the end,' said Vera Drew, 'The People's Joker' auteur and John Cassavetes Award nominee, to IndieWire.
'It can be a little disheartening sometimes just to see how things move,' agreed 'The Fire Inside' star Ryan Destiny, nominated for Best Lead Performance. 'I'm just hoping that we can continue to go forward and not backwards.'
Presented by Film Independent, the 40th Indie Spirit Awards memorialized the first year since the hosting nonprofit lost its late president Josh Welsh in December. The event also brought attendees back to its storied spot along the West Coast (coincidentally, the location is changing next year) — just a few miles south of the wreckage left by last month's devastating wildfires in the Pacific Palisades.
'We're in a world that eats your spirit,' said actress Lily Gladstone, nominated for Best Lead Performance in a New Scripted Series for 'Under the Bridge.' 'Spirit,' she said, 'is having that human experience and a big part of that is speaking from whatever our creative impulse is [inside]. That's what we do as storytellers and it's what keeps our autonomy alive.'
On stage, 'Anora' filmmaker Sean Baker went semi-viral advocating for 'higher upfront fees' in a powerful Best Director acceptance speech. On the carpet, creatives of all kinds questioned how funding would — and wouldn't — hold back the right indie artists going forward.
'I want to see more stories from filmmakers we haven't heard from before,' said 'Dìdi' filmmaker Sean Wang, who won both Best First Screenplay and Best First Feature. Wang said he likes to see movies from first-time filmmakers because 'when you don't know the rules, it's more exciting.'
'I'm most excited for like 19-year-old queer kids with cameras to do some cool punk shit,' said 'I Saw the TV Glow' filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun when asked about the future of indie cinema. Nominated for Best Director, Best Feature, and Best Screenplay, they continued, 'And I'm least excited for 40-year-old straight men with cameras and lots and lots of money to do boring shit.'
'It's amazing the resilience of filmmakers, but I don't want to sugarcoat it, it's really, really hard,' cautioned director and Cassavetes winner Shuchi Talati. Made over eight years, her film 'Girls Will Be Girls' was an intense labor of love. Talati lamented to IndieWire that even with considerable success too many directors 'can't pay crew and cast and ourselves what I think people deserve.'
'Nickel Boys' filmmaker RaMell Ross argued you don't 'need a lot of money to make a film that's cinematic and deserves to be in theaters' — but urged for a broad reassessment of the cost-benefit analysis between artistic risk and economic return. 'I think we should be afraid of things continuing as they are, and we should hope for new models and paradigms,' Ross told IndieWire.
'The market is really uncertain so if you can do something of some quality for less there's a lot more freedom,' agreed 'Ghostlight' co-director and producer Alex Thompson. 'We get to make our own dreams come true at the independent level. And that comes with a lot of responsibility.'
'With more money, famously, there comes more problems,' said 'Ghostlight' co-director and writer Kelly O'Sullivan. 'But with really small budgets like ours, we were able to maintain full creative control. There's a clarity of vision. There's a preservation of artistic integrity. And you get to work with actors who are maybe just as talented as some of the more famous actors but haven't yet gotten their shot in the sun.'
Also nominated for the Cassavetes, 'Ghostlight' follows a rag-tag theater group and stars Best Lead Performance nominee Keith Kupferer opposite his real family. 'To have my family here with me' representing the real Chicago theater scene at the Indie Spirits, Kupferer said, was 'a joy.'
Authenticity fortified through community is at the core of all moviemaking and remained front of mind when guests looked back on both their past year's accomplishments — and the road ahead.
'You can't get a more tight-knit family than after making two microbudget films in a row,' said 'Jazzy' filmmaker Morrissa Maltz, now on her second Cassavetes nomination for a movie made for under $300,000. 'It was incredibly hard, but we got the films made. And that's what's important.'
Nominated for Best Supporting Performance, 'A Different Man' actor Adam Pearson praised co-star Sebastian Stan (separately nominated for Best Lead Performance thanks to 'The Apprentice') and the wider artistic world for empowering his decades-long fight against the misrepresentation of disability in Hollywood.
'To any young actors coming up,' Pearson said, 'bide your time, make smart choices, know what kind of actor you want to be, and don't compromise on that. I'd rather act for myself and have no audience than act for an audience and have no self.'
'We see that the world is always faking everything and it's really uncomfortable and creepy,' echoed 'I Saw the TV Glow' star and Best Supporting Performance nominee Jack Haven. 'When you're queer you can't deny certain things about that lie.'
Haven wore a jacket advocating for the people of Palestine and continued, 'We have to stay vigilant and stay brave and honest with ourselves and what we represent — and we can't confuse what it means to be independent. What it means to be independent is to stand in solidarity with the people who are being stolen from on this Earth.'
Asked if art can fight fascism, their co-star and Best Lead Performance nominee Justice Smith said, 'Art can motivate people to fight fascism. But art cannot fight fascism.'
Coming off a buzzy breakout performance in 'Kiss of the Spider Woman' at Sundance, actor Tonatiuh emphasized the intersection of community, authenticity, and shifting economic and geopolitical priorities all at once.
'A lot of the narratives that are the most interesting aren't the ones that are being taken a chance on because people want a high return on investment because, at the end of the day, it's still a business. But I think that dynamic is shifting and I think with this new geopolitical era that we're entering art is going to be the thing that gets us through any of it — and community. These circles is where we're going to be seeing the new frontier of filmmaking.'
Best of IndieWire
The 15 Best Thrillers Streaming on Netflix in January, from 'Fair Play' to 'Emily the Criminal'
The 25 Best Sci-Fi TV Series of the 21st Century, Ranked
The Best Modern Westerns, from 'The Power of the Dog' to 'Killers of the Flower Moon' to 'The Hateful Eight'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
The 7 Best New Movies on Netflix in June 2025
There are some months when movies are not the primary benefit of having a Netflix subscription. This is not one of those months. June 2025 sees the streaming giant adding a cornucopia of classic and modern films to its repertory library, headlined by a series of Alfred Hitchcock classics that are accompanied by screenings in Netflix-owned theaters in both New York and Los Angeles. There are also plenty of recent hits to choose from, including arguably the laugh-out-loud funniest 'Saturday Night Live' movie to date, a feel-good LEGO music documentary, and one of the most exciting horror movies of the 2020s. More from IndieWire Mara Brock Akil on the Response to 'Forever': 'It Is a Privilege to Be Trusted That Much' Does 'Materialists' Satisfy as a Romance? Screen Talk Debates Celine Song's Film, Shares 'F1' First Reactions 'I Don't Understand You' Review: Nick Kroll and Andrew Rannells Kill It in Grisly Destination Rom-Com Keep reading for our 7 favorite movies coming to Netflix in June 2025. Best of IndieWire Guillermo del Toro's Favorite Movies: 56 Films the Director Wants You to See 'Song of the South': 14 Things to Know About Disney's Most Controversial Movie Nicolas Winding Refn's Favorite Films: 37 Movies the Director Wants You to See
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Tramell Tillman could make Emmy history as the first Black Best Drama Supporting Actor winner
In 2015, Viola Davis won the Best Drama Actress Emmy for How to Get Away with Murder, becoming the category's first Black winner. That left one acting category that had yet to produce a Black champ: Best Drama Supporting Actor. Ten years later, that remains the case — even the short form acting categories, which were created in 2016 and consolidated into one in 2024, have awarded Black performers — but that could finally change in September with Severance star Tramell Tillman. Tillman is currently in third place in Gold Derby's Best Drama Supporting Actor odds, trailing Walton Goggins (The White Lotus) and Severance costar John Turturro. Tillman is the only Black performer in the top seven. Jason Isaacs (The White Lotus), Jack Lowden (Slow Horses), Sam Rockwell (The White Lotus), and Patrick Schwarzenegger (The White Lotus) round out the predicted field. More from GoldDerby 'Forever' star Lovie Simone on traveling back to a 'nostalgic' time for Netflix's teenage romance show Kristen Kish dishes on Season 22 of 'Top Chef,' Emmys, and the show's global impact: 'It's all driven by the fans' New 'Freakier Friday' trailer, Mia Goth set for 'Star Wars: Starfighter,' Samuel L. Jackson heads to Taylor Sheridan's 'NOLA,' and the rest of today's top stories Tillman was not nominated for the first season in 2022, not surprising for an unknown actor on a new show. Severance received 14 nominations for Season 1 and the Best Drama Series frontrunner is expected to expand this year. If Tillman makes the cut amid a possible deluge by White Lotus dudes, a win — and a historic one at that — is certainly not out of the question. The Apple TV+ drama was bigger than ever in Season 2, and Tramell got to shine even brighter as his Lumon stooge Seth Milchick faced a crisis of confidence, leading to his instantly viral line, "Devour feculence." Oh, and there was the whole Choreography and Merriment marching band dance. It also doesn't hurt that the actor has brought his unique line deliveries to Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning. SEE The ultimate oral history of Severance Season 2 It's not surprising Turturro is ahead of Tillman in the odds. He's a bigger name and a past winner who was nominated for Season 1 and had meaty material early in Season 2 before a diminished presence in the back half. Tillman had a consistent presence and arc throughout the season, ending with a bang with the aforementioned dance sequence (Turturro was MIA in the finale). And voters have shown through the years that when they're paying attention to a show — and there's no reason to think they're not paying attention to Severance — the underdog can topple the "obvious" frontrunner or bigger name (see: Jodie Comer beating her heavily predicted Killing Eve co-star Sandra Oh). Of course, Goggins is the frontrunner, not Turturro. And taking down The White Lotus, an acting branch fave, will be tougher. Formally established in 1970, Best Drama Supporting Actor has seen 13 Black actors receive 23 nominations over the years. 2021 was the last year with a Black nominee — and there were a record three: Giancarlo Esposito (The Mandalorian), O-T Fagbenle (The Handmaid's Tale), and Michael K. Williams (Lovecraft Country), who died shortly after voting ended. They lost to Tobias Menzies (The Crown). There have been POC nominees since then, however, with Squid Game stars Park Hae-soo and O Yeong-su in 2022, The White Lotus' Will Sharpe, who is half-Japanese, in 2023, and Shōgun duo Tadanobu Asano and Takehiro Hira in 2024. Best of GoldDerby The Making of 'The Eyes of the World: From D-Day to VE Day': PBS variety special 'comes from the heart' From 'Hot Rod' to 'Eastbound' to 'Gemstones,' Danny McBride breaks down his most righteous roles: 'It's been an absolute blast' Jay Duplass on exposing his 'dad bod' and playing a 'soft villain' in 'Dying for Sex': 'Easily one of my biggest acting challenges' Click here to read the full article.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Patricia Arquette's ‘Severance' character talks like that because ‘she thinks that's what power sounds like'
Even after two seasons of Severance, Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette) remains an enigma. The woman occasionally known as 'Mrs. Selvig' seems like the ultimate example of Lumon's management style, and yet she herself is constantly at loggerheads with her superiors. She apparently invented the severance procedure as we know it, and yet helps Mark Scout (Adam Scott) break through it. Many mysteries remain as Severance fans look forward to Season 3, but certain things about Cobel can be explained in the meantime. In a new interview with Gold Derby, Arquette says that she is responsible for both the character's look and her mannered way of speaking. More from GoldDerby 'Ballerina' targets $35 million opening in box-office clash with 'Lilo & Stitch' 'Brilliant Minds' creator Michael Grassi on how his love of Oliver Sacks inspired NBC's new medical drama The Making of 'The Eyes of the World: From D-Day to VE Day': PBS variety special 'comes from the heart' READ: 'When I was first thinking of building that character, I saw her with silver hair, white hair,' Arquette says. 'I felt like her hair should be a little older than she is. But also I wanted to have this affected, weird voice. I liked this idea that she's got this affected voice because she thinks that's what power sounds like. That's what these middle managers sound like. It's probably something she heard in school and you hear it a little bit from her aunt when you see the squalor she actually grew up in. So this is a made-up voice, a voice of success, and it's become this corporate sound.' Arquette continues, 'there's also an inscrutability when you're raised in an organization or structure [like Lumon], where you're not supposed to feel your feelings. You're supposed to swallow your feelings and you're not supposed to tell everyone what's going on or you'll get in trouble. You learn to play things close to the vest. I don't think Harmony's ever been really safe in her life anywhere or with anyone. And then when we went to Salt's Neck, it was like, 'Wow, this is a very Bergman-looking color palette, with actual icebergs floating by.' If your character looked like a piece of nature, she would look like an iceberg.' Cobel was not as prominent in Severance Season 2 as she was in Season 1, since she lost her position both at Lumon and as Mark's next-door neighbor. But she was able to take the spotlight in the episode 'Sweet Vitriol,' in which viewers followed Cobel back to her hometown of Salt's Neck — once the location of a major Lumon ether factory, now a left-behind wasteland full of poverty and addiction. Among other things, the episode revealed that Cobel basically invented the severance chip, despite getting little credit for it. It seems like a paradox that the Lumon employee responsible for its most important technology also defies upper management as often as Harmony does, but Arquette says that paradox is central to Severance. 'It may seem like a perversion, but honestly, her interior unresolved story informs the creation of the severance chip,' Arquette says. 'She's trying to prove something through this thing. There is a synchronicity between the severance chip and her interior landscape. They are very closely wedded to each other, these two things. It's not accidental.' The epidemic of ether addiction that pervades present-day Salt Neck is also no accident. Think of it, Arquette says, like an earlier attempt at separating people's work memories from the rest of their life. 'Ben [Stiller] wanted this rotting factory town,' Arquette says of Salt Neck. 'This is an early version of Lumon's attempt to create a corporate town, and these are the vestiges left over after the poisoning of the water and the ether factory and everyone becoming addicts. In a weird way, ether is an early form of severance. It's like the drug of forgetting. So what if you could forget, like with ether, but without the drug? Well then you would need a chip, and that's severance.' Best of GoldDerby The Making of 'The Eyes of the World: From D-Day to VE Day': PBS variety special 'comes from the heart' From 'Hot Rod' to 'Eastbound' to 'Gemstones,' Danny McBride breaks down his most righteous roles: 'It's been an absolute blast' Jay Duplass on exposing his 'dad bod' and playing a 'soft villain' in 'Dying for Sex': 'Easily one of my biggest acting challenges' Click here to read the full article.
