Spirit Awards ballot

As a card carrying member of the Independent Feature Project I'm entitled to vote for their awards. Below are my votes in the categories in which I watched every nominee. Since I procrastinated, I watched an average of one movie a day from April 2-9 (Jack saw most of them). I just updated my running list of selected awards and will finish after the Spirit Awards April 22 and Oscars April 25. Links below are to my posts about each movie.

Awards have been awarded. My picks are the first listed below in each category and the winners have asterisks*.

BEST FEATURE: Nomadland*
Other nominees:

First Cow

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

Minari

Never Rarely Sometimes Always

BEST FIRST FEATURE: Sound of Metal*
Other nominees:

I Carry You With Me
The Forty-Year-Old Version
Miss Juneteenth
Nine Days

BEST DIRECTOR: Lee Isaac Chung, Minari
Other nominees:

Kelly Reichardt, First Cow
Eliza Hittman, Never Rarely Sometimes Always
Chloé Zhao, Nomadland*
Emerald Fennell, Promising Young Woman

BEST SCREENPLAY: Emerald Fennell, Promising Young Woman*
Other nominees: 

Mike Makowsky, Bad Education

Alice Wu, The Half of It

Lee Isaac Chung, Minari

Eliza Hittman, Never Rarely Sometimes Always

BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY: Noah Hutton, Lapsis
Other nominees:

Kitty Green, The Assistant
Channing Godfrey Peoples, Miss Juneteenth
Andy Siara, Palm Springs*
James Sweeney, Straight Up

BEST MALE LEAD: Riz Ahmed, Sound of Metal*
Other nominees:

Rob Morgan, Bull
Chadwick Boseman, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Steven Yeun, Minari
Adarsh Gourav, The White Tiger

BEST FEMALE LEAD: Viola Davis, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Other nominees:

Julia Garner, The Assistant
Nicole Beharie, Miss Juneteenth
Sidney Flanigan, Never Rarely Sometimes Always
Frances McDormand, Nomadland

Carey Mulligan, Promising Young Woman*

BEST SUPPORTING MALE: Orion Lee, First Cow
Other nominees:

Colman Domingo, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Glynn Turman, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Benedict Wong, Nine Days
Paul Raci, Sound of Metal*

BEST SUPPORTING FEMALE: Yuh-jung Youn, Minari*
Other nominees:

Valerie Mahaffey, French Exit
Yeri Han, Minari

Alexis Chikaeze, Miss Juneteenth
Talia Ryder, Never Rarely Sometimes Always

BEST DOCUMENTARY: Crip Camp*

Other nominees:

Collective

Dick Johnson Is Dead

The Mole Agent

Time

Didn't get to around to watching She Dies Tomorrow (and I really don't like the horror genre), but I was blown away by the magic hour shots in Nomadland so I cheated and voted for it. 

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Nomadland, Joshua James Richards*
Other nominees:

The Assistant, Michael Latham

Bull, Shabier Kirchner

Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Hélène Louvart

She Dies Tomorrow, Jay Keitel

The IFP added some TV categories and I want to give a shout out to these wonderful nominees for

BEST FEMALE PERFORMANCE IN A SCRIPTED SERIES. It was a tough choice, but I voted for Abby McEnany (“Work in Progress”).

The other nominees:

Elle Fanning (“The Great”)
Maitreyi Ramakrishnan (“Never Have I Ever”)
Shira Haas (“Unorthodox”)*
Jordan Kristine Seamón (“We Are Who We Are”)

Sadly I did not get to any of the foreign movies in time. FYI here are the nominees.

BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM 
Bacurau (Brazil)
The Disciple (India)
Night of the Kings (Ivory Coast)
Preparations to be Together for an Unknown Period of Time (Hungary)
Quo Vadis, Aida? (Bosnia and Herzegovina)*