39th Independent Spirit Awards

For the second year in a row, the ceremony was streamed live on the YouTube channels of both IMDb and Film Independent, among other social platforms.

[15] Past Lives – David Hinojosa, Pamela Koffler, and Christine Vachon Celine Song – Past Lives Jeffrey Wright – American Fiction as Thelonious "Monk" Ellison Da'Vine Joy Randolph – The Holdovers as Mary Lamb Dominic Sessa – The Holdovers as Angus Tully American Fiction – Cord Jefferson A Thousand and One – A. V. Rockwell (director); Julia Lebedev, Rishi Rajani, Eddie Vaisman, Lena Waithe, and Brad Weston (producers) May December – Samy Burch; story by Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik Four Daughters – Kaouther Ben Hania (director); Nadim Cheikhrouha (producer) Anatomy of a Fall (France) – Justine Triet The Holdovers – Eigil Bryld How to Blow Up a Pipeline – Daniel Garber Beef – Lee Sung Jin (creator/executive producer); Steven Yeun, Ali Wong, Jake Schreier, Ravi Nandan, and Alli Reich (executive producers); Alice Ju and Carrie Kemper (co-executive producers) (Netflix) Dear Mama – Lasse Järvi, Quincy "QD3" Jones III, Staci Robinson, Nelson George, Charles D. King, Peter Nelson, Adel "Future" Nur, Jamal Joseph, Ted Skillman, Allen Hughes, Steve Berman, Marc Cimino, Jody Gerson, John Janick, Nicholas Ferrall, and Nigel Sinclair (executive producers) (FX) Ali Wong – Beef as Amy Lau (Netflix) Nick Offerman – The Last of Us as Bill (HBO) Keivonn Montreal Woodard – The Last of Us as Sam (HBO) Jury Duty – Alan Barinholtz, Susan Berger, Cassandra Blair, David Brown, Kirk Fox, Ross Kimball, Pramode Kumar, Trisha LaFache, Mekki Leeper, James Marsden, Edy Modica, Kerry O'Neill, Rashida Olayiwola, Whitney Rice, Maria Russell, Ishmel Sahid, Ben Seaward, Ron Song, and Evan Williams (The award is given to the best feature made for under $1,000,000; award given to the writer, director, and producer) Fremont – Babak Jalali (director/writer); Carolina Cavalli (writer); Rachael Fung, Chris Martin, Marjaneh Moghimi, George Rush, Sudnya Shroff, and Laura Wagner (producers) (The award is given to the film's director, casting director, and ensemble cast) The award honors emerging producers who, despite highly limited resources, demonstrate the creativity, tenacity and vision required to produce quality, independent films.

Outside the venue, a handful of protesters were located on the beach in Santa Monica playing previously recorded chants on a megaphone, such as "free Palestine", "long live Palestine" and "ceasefire now", which played on a loop throughout most of the ceremony and was audible to everyone inside; host Aidy Bryant, and winners Babak Jalali and Kelly Reichardt referenced the chants in their speeches.

Another group of Spirits security guards stood by and watched; three police officers, one in fully armed gear, looked on.

"[20] Afterward, Josh Welsh, the long-serving president of Film Independent, responded to the scene, saying: "We embrace the First Amendment and freedom of speech, and this is clearly a moment when people feel passionately about what's happening in the world and want to speak about it.

It is far more important to stand against oppression and racism as it exists in the world today in solidarity with the Black and brown people of the planet, particularly Palestinians."