The Spirit Awards Push their Date Back from the Oscars

The Wrap reports that the Spirit Awards will separate from being held a day before the Oscars to being held the Thursday before the Oscars:

The Film Independent Spirit Awards are moving up on the release calendar for this year only — breaking tradition by not taking place on the Thursday night before the Oscars, the nonprofit group Film Independent announced Thursday.

The 36th Annual Indie Spirits will now be held on the evening of Thursday, April 22 for a primetime broadcast on IFC. They were meant to be held on the afternoon of Saturday, April 24 — following a long-standing tradition of coming just one day before the Academy Awards. The show is always a looser experience held during the daytime in a massive tent adjacent to the Santa Monica Pier.

Further, nominations this year for the Independent Spirit Awards will be unveiled next week on January 26 by Laverne Cox, Barry Jenkins and Olivia Wilde, and the reveal will be streamed live on the Film Independent website and on its YouTube channel. No host has been announced for this year’s ceremony.

The Spirits Awards fit oddly well with the new normal of COVID as they’ve already gotten to a place where films dropped on VOD or streaming do not have to rely on box office or publicity to make the cut but can, instead, exist deep inside the realm of film critics and film twitter. The Oscars, on the other hand, will have quite the task of putting on a show with films people have actually seen if they want a ratings jump. Or not.

Either way, it seems like a totally different world thinking about the Big Tent and the awards show by the beach, doesn’t it? Everyone crammed together drinking champagne and hanging out. Oh, those were the days.

I expect we’ll see quite a few titles that aren’t “in the conversation,” as they say, but it also seems quite possible and probable we’ll be seeing a lot of women filmmakers nominated (best guess).

Here are the films I think will do well with the group (not that I have any clue because I am usually wrong):

Nomadland
I’m Thinking of Ending Things
Never Rarely Sometimes Always
The Assistant
Promising Young Woman
Sound of Metal
Minari
French Exit (maybe?)
Spree (I hope)

There are budget constraints so I don’t know what movies may or may not qualify but I imagine that:

One Night in Miami
Da 5 Bloods
Palm Springs

Honestly, your guess is as good as mine and I’m sure you readers will know far better how it might go.