The Film Independent Spirit Awards are moving to gender-neutral acting categories in both film and television this year, Film Independent announced on Tuesday.
“We’re thrilled to join the other festivals and award shows that are already moving to celebrate great acting without reference to gender,” Film Independent President Josh Welsh said. “We’re also happy to welcome non-binary performers into the Spirit Awards without forcing them to choose to identify as male or female.”
The move makes the Spirit Awards the most high-profile film and television award to introduce gender-neutral acting categories, which are also in use at the Gotham Awards, the British Independent Film Awards and the MTV Movie and TV Awards, among others. In music, the Grammy Awards eliminated gender-specific categories more than a decade ago.
Awards in the lead and supporting film acting categories will now be known as Best Lead Performance and Best Supporting Performance, and those categories will be expanded from five to 10 nominees each. Awards in the television acting categories will similarly be known as Best Lead Performance and Best Supporting Performance in a New Scripted Series, and they will also be expanded to 10.
Two new categories will be added: Best Breakthrough Performance, a film award with only five nominees; and Best Supporting Performance in a New Scripted Series, a television category with 10 nominees.
In addition, the Spirit Awards are raising the budget limit for eligible films to $30 million, a substantial increase from the former $22.5 million limit. At the same time, the budget cap for the John Cassavetes Award has been increased from $500,000 to $1 million.
“It has been a long time since we substantially increased the budget limit for eligibility,” Welsh said. “This new cap allows us to continue to celebrate the same breadth of work that we have in the past.”
Because of 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 in order to be eligible.
Film nominations for the 2023 Spirit Awards will be announced virtually on Nov. 22, 2022; television nominations will be announced on Dec. 13. The Spirit Awards will be held on March 4, 2023.
Submissions are now open, with the deadlines for film submissions being Sept. 6 (early deadline), Sept. 20 (regular deadline), Oct. 4 (final deadline) and Oct. 7 (extended deadline for Arts Circle and Filmmaker Pro Members). Television deadlines are Sept. 20 (regular deadline), Oct. 4 (final deadline) and Oct. 7 (extended deadline).
Steve Pond contributed to this report.
