Duvall’s ‘Apostle’ Truly Filled With Spirit

“The Apostle,” Robert Duvall’s film about a Pentecostal minister, was the big winner Thursday when the Independent Feature Project, a nonprofit group dedicated to promoting American independent filmmakers, announced nominees for its 13th annual Spirit Awards.

Duvall’s film received six nominations, the most of any independent film. “Hard Eight,” “Star Maps” and “Ulee’s Gold” each received five nominations.

But perhaps the most notable nominated films were two that few moviegoers have heard of, “Habit” and “Loved.” These films, nominated in the best director and best feature film categories, respectively, share something in common that underscores the difficulties today’s independent filmmakers face: Both have yet to find a domestic distributor.

“As more and more films are being made, there’s just more competition for getting a distributor to commit to your film,” said Dawn Hudson, IFP / West’s executive director. “We want to bring attention to those films that don’t necessarily get the attention or the time in the marketplace that they deserve.”

Besides “Loved,” which was directed by Erin Dignam, nominees for best feature are: “The Apostle” (October Films), directed by Duvall; “Chasing Amy” (Miramax), directed by Kevin Smith; “Ulee’s Gold” (MGM), directed by Victor Nun~ez; and “Waiting for Guffman” (Sony Pictures Classics), directed by Christopher Guest.

Atom Egoyan’s “The Sweet Hereafter”--one of the year’s most acclaimed films, which is being mentioned for potential Academy Award nominations--was ineligible for best picture because the IFP’s guidelines exclude movies that are not American-made. Egoyan is Canadian; his film was nominated for best foreign film.

Best director nominees are Duvall, Nun~ez, Larry Fessenden for “Habit,” Paul Schrader for “Touch” and Wim Wenders for “The End of Violence.”

The IFP has 8,500 members who will vote for the Independent Spirit Award winners, focusing particularly on lower budget and less publicized independent films. The awards will be presented the Saturday before the Oscars, March 21, under a tent on the beach in Santa Monica.

To be nominated, a film must have been shown at a commercial theater during 1997 or have played at one of six major film festivals in the United States.

First-time directors and producers are honored in the category of best first feature. Those nominees are: Paul Thomas Anderson, Robert Jones and John Lyons for “Hard Eight”; Miguel Arteta and Matthew Greenfield for “Star Maps”; Daniel J. Harris for “The Bible and Gun Club”; Neil LaBute, Mark Archer and Stephen Pevner for “In the Company of Men”; and Kasi Lemmons, Caldecot Chubb and Samuel L. Jackson for “Eve’s Bayou.”

Best actress nominations went to Julie Christie for “Afterglow,” Stacy Edwards for “In the Company of Men,” Alison Folland for “All Over Me,” Lisa Harrow for “Sunday” and Robin Wright Penn for “Loved.”

Actors receiving nominations were Duvall for “The Apostle,” Peter Fonda for “Ulee’s Gold,” Guest for “Waiting for Guffman,” Philip Baker Hall for “Hard Eight” and John Turturro for “Box of Moonlight.”

Nominees for best debut performance, given to an actor or actress making his or her first appearance in a feature-length film, include Tyrone Burton, Eddie Cutanda and Phuong Duong for “Squeeze”; Aaron Eckhart for “In the Company of Men”; Lysa Flores for “Star Maps”; Darling Narita for “Bang”; and Douglas Spain for “Star Maps.”

Best supporting actress nominees are Farrah Fawcett for “The Apostle,” Amy Madigan for “Loved,” Debbi Morgan for “Eve’s Bayou,” Miranda Richardson for “The Apostle” and Patricia Richardson for “Ulee’s Gold.”

Best supporting actor nominees include Efrain Figueroa for “Star Maps,” Samuel L. Jackson for “Hard Eight,” Jason Lee for “Chasing Amy,” Ajay Naidu for “SubUrbia” and Roy Scheider for “The Myth of Fingerprints.”

Best screenplay nominees include Duvall for “The Apostle,” Smith for “Chasing Amy,” Schrader for “Touch,” Nun~ez for “Ulee’s Gold” and Guest and Eugene Levy for “Waiting for Guffman.”

The IFP also presents an award for best first screenplay. Those nominees are: Miguel Arteta for “Star Maps,” Anderson for “Hard Eight,” Harris for “The Bible and Gun Club,” LaBute for “In the Company of Men” and Steven S. Schwartz for “Critical Care.”

Nominations for best foreign film went to Canada’s “The Sweet Hereafter,” Hong Kong’s “Happy Together,” France’s “Nenette et Boni,” Spain’s “Mouth to Mouth” (“Boca a Boca”) and Bosnia-Herzegovina and France’s “Underground.”

The best cinematography nominees include Michael Barrow and John Foster, “Sunday”; Frank DeMarco, “Habit”; Robert Elswit, “Hard Eight”; Decian Quinn, “Kama Sutra”; and Alex Vendler, “The Bible and Gun Club.”

Last year’s Spirit Award winners included “Fargo” for best feature, “Fargo’s” Joel Coen for best director, William H. Macy (“Fargo”) for best male lead, Joel and Ethan Coen for the “Fargo” screenplay, Billy Bob Thornton in “Sling Blade” for best first feature and “Secrets & Lies” for best foreign film.