The Film Independent Spirit Awards will move to gender-neutral acting categories in both film and television this year, Film Independent announced Tuesday.
“We’re thrilled to join the other festivals and award shows that are already moving to celebrate great acting without reference to genre,” said Film Independent President Josh Welsh. “We are also happy to welcome non-binary artists to the Spirit Awards without forcing them to choose to identify as male or female.”
The move makes the Spirit Awards the highest-profile film and television award to introduce gender-neutral acting categories, which are also used at the Gotham Awards, the British Independent Film Awards and the MTV Movie and TV Awards. , among others. In music, the Grammy Awards eliminated genre-specific categories more than a decade ago.
Awards in the Lead and Supporting Performance categories will now be known as Best Lead Performance and Best Supporting Performance, with those categories expanding from five to 10 nominees each. Awards in the television acting categories will be similarly known as Best Leading Performance and Best Supporting Performance in a New Scripted Series, and will also be expanded to 10.
Two new categories will be added: Best Breakthrough Performance, a movie award with just five nominees; and Best Supporting Performance in a New Scripted Series, a television category with 10 nominees.
Additionally, the Spirit Awards are raising the budget cap for eligible films to $30 million, a substantial increase from the previous cap of $22.5 million. At the same time, the budget cap for the John Cassavetes Prize was increased from $500,000 to $1 million.
“It’s been a long time since we substantially increased the budget cap for eligibility,” Welsh said. “This new cap allows us to continue to celebrate the same breadth of work that we have had in the past.”
Due to the effect of COVID on film distribution, this year’s Spirit Awards have also once again waived the usual requirement that a film receive a theatrical release to be eligible.
Movie nominations for the 2023 Spirit Awards will be announced virtually on November 22, 2022; television nominations will be announced on December 13. The Spirit Awards will take place on March 4, 2023.
Presentations are now open, and the film submission deadlines are September 6 (early deadline), September 20 (regular deadline), October 4 (late deadline), and October 7 (extended deadline for members of Arts Circle and Filmmaker Pro). The TV deadlines are September 20 (regular deadline), October 4 (final deadline), and October 7 (extended deadline).
Steve Pond contributed to this report.
