Spirit Awards Gets Back to Its Beachfront Digs
variety.comTodd Gilchrist In 2021, the Film Independent Spirit Awards went online in reaction to a then-still-raging pandemic, forcing nominees, guests, Film Independent members and even host Melissa Villaseñor to celebrate remotely.
In 2022, Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman have taken over hosting duties from Villaseñor, but the rest of those people will be back in the ceremony’s traditional venue, a tent near the Santa Monica beach.To Film Independent president Josh Welsh, the return feels like a relief, especially after the Omicron variant wreaked havoc on in-person gatherings in December and January, risking another season of socially-distanced events.
But despite his excitement, Welsh insists that the annual celebration of independent cinema has still not quite returned to normal. “It definitely does not feel like business as usual, and everything feels very different,” he tells Variety.
If you’ve been following awards-season pundits as they herald prospective winners, looking at Film Independent’s nominees only underscores how right Welsh is: the films with the most nominations, Janicza Bravo’s “Zola” and Lauren Hadaway’s “The Novice,” were pretty much ignored by would-be standard bearer groups like the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn.
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