Steve McQueen

Several films that featured at last night's European Film Awards in Copenhagen are among the nominations for the American Independent Spirit Awards, announced last Monday. Steve McQueen's (above) 'Hunger', Matteo Garrone's 'Gomorrah', Abdellatif Kechiche's 'Couscous' and Laurent Cantet's 'The Class' are up for best foreign picture, along with Carlos Reygados's 'Silent Light'. The indie Spirits are a useful early guide to Oscar contenders, if this is to be another year where they make the running ahead of the major studios. So keep an eye on the contenders for best feature: Lance Hammer's 'Ballast', Darron Aronofsky's 'The Wrestler', Jonathan Demme's 'Rachel Getting Married', Larry Fessenden's 'Wendy And Lucy', Chip Hourihan's 'Frozen River', and Tom McCarthy's 'The Visitor', which was surprisingly omitted but had a best director nomination. 'Milk' is represented by Sean Penn's best male lead nomination. He'll be up against Javier Bardem ('Vicky Cristina Barcelona'), Richard Jenkins ('The Visitor'), Jeremy Renner ('The Hurt Locker') and Mickey Rourke ('The Wrestler'). Anne Hathaway's growing stature is reflected in her best female lead nomination for 'Rachel Getting Married', where she's up against Michelle Williams ('Wendy And Lucy'), Tara Riggs ('Ballast') Melissa Leo ('Frozen River') and Summer Bishil ('Towelhead'). Three of the nominations for best documentary are also on the Oscar long-list of 15 – Werner Herzog's 'Encounters At The End Of The World', James Marsh's 'Man On Wire' and Ellen Hurs and Thavisouk Phrasavath's 'The Betrayal', together with Margaret Brown's 'The Order of Myths' and Yung Chang's 'Up The Yangtze'.