Indie Queens and Indie Spirit Awards

"Before Maggie Gyllenhaal, before Parker Posey, there was Adrienne Shelly. Around 1990, when the first wave of the Sundance-era indie-film revolution was cresting, Shelly was the queen of the scene. With the one-two punch of The Unbelievable Truth (pictured) and Trust, she and filmmaker Hal Hartley had made put each other on the map, and those deadpan romantic comedies had made the lush-lipped actress a pin-up among indie film fanboys. She'd go on to specialize in portrayals of waifish, fringe-dwelling women who often seemed to hide a ferocious intelligence behind an offbeat exterior. In recent years, she'd largely given up acting for directing (though she appeared on screen this year in Matt Dillon's Factotum), including a movie she'd recently directed and submitted to the 2007 Sundance Festival called Waitress,starring Keri Russell.

It's worth going back and watching the Hartley movies or Joel Hershman's Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, and Deran Serafian's The Road Killers in order to recall what a singular, sharp but sweet presence she was in movies. Meanwhile, let's hope Sundance screens Waitress and finds a way to pay tribute to Shelly; after all, she helped lay the fest's foundation". Source: Popwatch.ew.com

23rd Annual Spirit Awards 2008:

BEST FIRST FEATURE
2 Days in Paris
Director: Julie Delpy

Great World of Sound
Director Craig Zobel

The Lookout
Director: Scott Frank

Rocket Science
Director: Jeffrey Blitz

Vanaja
Director: Rajnesh Domalpalli

BEST SCREENPLAY
Ronald Harwood
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Tamara Jenkins
The Savages

Fred Parnes & Andrew Wagner
Starting Out in the Evening

Adrienne Shelly
Waitress

Mike White
Year of the Dog

BEST FEMALE LEAD
Angelina Jolie
A Mighty Heart

Sienna Miller
Interview

Ellen Page
Juno

Parker Posey
Broken English

Wei Tang
Lust Caution
Source: www.Ifc.com