‘Past Lives,’ ‘American Fiction’ and ‘The Holdovers’ Are Big Winners at Independent Spirit Awards 

Celine Song receives the Best Feature award for "Past Lives" during the 39th Film Independent Spirit Awards in Santa Monica, California, US, February 25, 2024. (Reuters)
Celine Song receives the Best Feature award for "Past Lives" during the 39th Film Independent Spirit Awards in Santa Monica, California, US, February 25, 2024. (Reuters)
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‘Past Lives,’ ‘American Fiction’ and ‘The Holdovers’ Are Big Winners at Independent Spirit Awards 

Celine Song receives the Best Feature award for "Past Lives" during the 39th Film Independent Spirit Awards in Santa Monica, California, US, February 25, 2024. (Reuters)
Celine Song receives the Best Feature award for "Past Lives" during the 39th Film Independent Spirit Awards in Santa Monica, California, US, February 25, 2024. (Reuters)

Celine Song’s quiet romance "Past Lives" won two of the biggest awards at the Film Independent Spirit Awards Sunday afternoon, including best feature and best director. Other big winners were Cord Jefferson’s comedic satire "American Fiction," with Jeffrey Wright winning for lead performer; and Alexander Payne’s "The Holdovers," which won prizes for Da'Vine Joy Randolph and Dominic Sessa.

The 39th edition of the show was held Sunday in a beachside tent in Santa Monica, California, and streamed live on IMDb and Film Independent’s YouTube channels and X accounts.

"Thank you so much for letting me share what it feels like to be human, to love and be loved, and thank you for loving our film," Song said in accepting the directing prize.

Her film was among the top nominated at the show, alongside "May December," which won only one award (for Samy Burch's first screenplay) and "American Fiction," which fared better.

Wright won for playing a frustrated author who becomes wildly successful by writing something he hates in "American Fiction."

"You go to these awards shows, you kind of grow tired of them," Wright said. "And then you get one, and it kind of changes the vibe a little bit."

He noted that it was made independently because "nobody wanted to finance it."

The Spirit Awards sit firmly within the larger Hollywood awards season, which culminates with the Oscars on March 10. But with a budget cap of $20 million for nominees, the show celebrates films that sometimes go unheralded, or at least under-nominated, at the bigger shows.

Host Aidy Bryant called it "the only place in the world where $20 million is like no money."

Randolph continued her sweep of the broader season, winning best supporting performance for playing the grieving cook Mary Lamb in "The Holdovers." Not 24 hours ago, right across town, she also picked up the best supporting actress award at the SAG Awards.

"Independent films are the beating heart of our industry, and they are worth fighting for," Randolph said. She did, however, wish that they might have been able to afford heated seats while filming in Boston in the winter.

Randolph beat out the likes of Anne Hathaway ("Eileen"), Charles Melton ("May December") and Sterling K. Brown ("American Fiction") for the prize.

Her co-star, Sessa, later won the breakthrough prize.

"I promise it’s not all downhill from here," Sessa said, thanking his high school acting teachers.

Last year, "Everything Everywhere All At Once" swept the Spirit Awards before going on to do the same at the Oscars. But this year, many top Oscar contenders — including "Oppenheimer,Barbie" and "Killers of the Flower Moon" — would not have qualified.

Kaouther Ben Hania’s film " Four Daughters," which is nominated for the corresponding Oscar, won best documentary. And Justine Triet’s "Anatomy of a Fall," also nominated for best picture at the Oscars, won best international feature over "The Zone of Interest."

"Los Angeles has a special place in my heart. It’s the city of John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands," Triet said. "Without discovering them at their films at the age of 20, I wouldn’t have had the desire to make my own films and I wouldn’t be here today."

The Cassavetes ethos actually has its own award, honoring a film made for under $1 million. That prize went this year to "Fremont," about an Afghan translator working for a Chinese fortune cookie factory.

The show had some unexpected background noise, from one man with a loudspeaker conducting a pro-Palestine protest outside the tent that lasted for some time.

"We are at the beach, and people are celebrating their freedom of speech," Bryant said.

The shouting outside disrupted Jim Gaffigan’s tribute to "Jury Duty" and many more winners’ speeches. Comedian Jimmy O. Yang, speaking from the stage to present the best cinematography award, assumed it was a heckler outside.

Later, "Fremont" filmmaker Babak Jalali said he was sure that what was being said outside the tent was much more important than anything he had to say.

The Spirit Awards also honor television. Netflix’s "Beef" won best new scripted series and Ali Wong picked up best lead performance.

Nick Offerman won best supporting performance in a new scripted series for his turn in "The Last of Us." And 11-year-old actor Keivonn Montreal Woodard also won the breakthrough performance award for a new scripted series for "The Last of Us," giving his acceptance speech in American Sign Language.



Video Game Performers Will Go on Strike Over Artificial Intelligence Concerns 

SAG-AFTRA signage is seen on the side of the headquarters in Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP)
SAG-AFTRA signage is seen on the side of the headquarters in Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP)
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Video Game Performers Will Go on Strike Over Artificial Intelligence Concerns 

SAG-AFTRA signage is seen on the side of the headquarters in Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP)
SAG-AFTRA signage is seen on the side of the headquarters in Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP)

Hollywood's video game performers announced they would go on strike Thursday, throwing part of the entertainment industry into another work stoppage after talks for a new contract with major game studios broke down over artificial intelligence protections.

The strike — the second for video game voice actors and motion capture performers under the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists — will begin at 12:01 a.m. Friday. The move comes after nearly two years of negotiations with gaming giants, including divisions of Activision, Warner Bros. and Walt Disney Co., over a new interactive media agreement.

SAG-AFTRA negotiators say gains have been made over wages and job safety in the video game contract, but that the two sides remained split over the regulation of generative AI. A spokesperson for the video game producers, Audrey Cooling, said the studios offered AI protections, but SAG-AFTRA’s negotiating committee said that the studios’ definition of who constitutes a "performer" is key to understanding the issue of who would be protected.

"The industry has told us point blank that they do not necessarily consider everyone who is rendering movement performance to be a performer that is covered by the collective bargaining agreement," SAG-AFTRA Chief Contracts Officer Ray Rodriguez said at a news conference Thursday afternoon. He said some physical performances are being treated as "data."

Without guardrails, game companies could train AI to replicate an actor’s voice, or create a digital replica of their likeness without consent or fair compensation, the union said.

"We strike as a matter of last resort. We have given this process absolutely as much time as we responsibly can," Rodriguez told reporters. "We have exhausted the other possibilities, and that is why we’re doing it now."

Cooling said the companies' offer "extends meaningful AI protections."

"We are disappointed the union has chosen to walk away when we are so close to a deal, and we remain prepared to resume negotiations," she said.

Andi Norris, an actor and member of the union's negotiating committee, said that those who do stunt work or creature performances would still be at risk under the game companies' offer.

"The performers who bring their body of work to these games create a whole variety of characters, and all of that work must be covered. Their proposal would carve out anything that doesn’t look and sound identical to me as I sit here, when, in truth, on any given week I am a zombie, I am a soldier, I am a zombie soldier," Norris said. "We cannot and will not accept that a stunt or movement performer giving a full performance on stage next to a voice actor isn’t a performer."

The global video game industry generates well over $100 billion dollars in profit annually, according to game market forecaster Newzoo. The people who design and bring those games to life are the driving force behind that success, SAG-AFTRA said.

Members voted overwhelmingly last year to give leadership the authority to strike. Concerns about how movie studios will use AI helped fuel last year’s film and television strikes by the union, which lasted four months.

The last interactive contract, which expired in November 2022, did not provide protections around AI but secured a bonus compensation structure for voice actors and performance capture artists after an 11-month strike that began in October 2016. That work stoppage marked the first major labor action from SAG-AFTRA following the merger of Hollywood’s two largest actors unions in 2012.

The video game agreement covers more than 2,500 "off-camera (voiceover) performers, on-camera (motion capture, stunt) performers, stunt coordinators, singers, dancers, puppeteers, and background performers," according to the union.

Amid the tense interactive negotiations, SAG-AFTRA created a separate contract in February that covered independent and lower-budget video game projects. The tiered-budget independent interactive media agreement contains some of the protections on AI that video game industry titans have rejected. Games signed to an interim interactive media agreement, tiered-budget independent interactive agreement or interim interactive localization agreement are not part of the strike, the union said.