"12 Years A Slave" Leads Spirit Awards Nominations

Chiwetel Ejiofor in a scene from "12 Years A Slave." The film was nominated for a Spirit Award for best feature on Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2013. The Spirit Awards will take place Saturday, March 1, 2014.

LOS ANGELES (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — The race to Oscar has officially begun, as the slavery exploration "12 Years a Slave" was nominated Tuesday for a leading seven Spirit Awards, which honor independent film.

The Steve McQueen-directed drama is up for best feature, best director, best actor (Chiwetel Ejiofer), best supporting actress (Lupita Nyong'o), best supporting actor (Michael Fassbender), best screenplay (John Ridley) and best cinematography (Sean Bobbitt).

With six nominations, Alexander Payne's black-and-white comedy "Nebraska" is also in the running for best feature, best director, best actor for Bruce Dern, best supporting actress for June Squibb, best supporting actor for Will Forte and best first screenplay for Bob Nelson.

Other best-picture contenders include J.C. Chandor's near-wordless shipwreck drama "All is Lost," Noah Baumbach's New York tale "Frances Ha" and the Coen brothers' folk music story "Inside Llewyn Davis."
"All is Lost" also earned a best director slot for Chandor. Also up for best director are Jeff Nichols for the coming-of-age drama "Mud" and Shane Carruth for the sci-fi "Upstream Color." Along with Ejiofor and Dern, the best male lead category includes Oscar Isaac for "Inside Llewyn Davis," Matthew McConaughey for "Dallas Buyers Club," Robert Redford for "All is Lost" and Michael B. Jordan for "Fruitvale Station."
Julie Delpy received two nominations, for best female lead and best screenplay for "Before Midnight," the third installment in the romantic drama series that kicked off with "Before Sunrise" in 1995. Delpy shares the best screenplay nomination with Ethan Hawke and Richard Linklater, who co-wrote the script.

Among other best actress nominees are Cate Blanchett for "Blue Jasmine," Gaby Hoffmann for "Crystal Fairy," Brie Larson for "Short Term 12" and Shailene Woodley for "The Spectacular Now." Accompanying Delpy in the best screenplay category is Woody Allen for "Blue Jasmine," Nicole Holofcener for "Enough Said" and Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber for "The Spectacular Now."

For his performance in the romantic comedy "Enough Said," James Gandolfini earned a posthumous nomination for best supporting male. Though the Spirit Awards were begun to honor lower-budget films outside of Hollywood's mainstream, there is often overlap, and particularly so this year. Many of the 2013 Spirit nominees are expected to be strong Oscar contenders. Higher-budget studio releases like "Gravity" and "Captain Phillips" don't compete in the Spirit Awards, which are limited to films with a budget less than $20 million.

Last year, David O. Russell's "Silver Lining Playbook" swept the Spirit Awards, winning best feature, best director, best screenplay and best actress for Jennifer Lawrence. Presented by the cinema group Film Independent, the Spirit Awards will be handed out the day before the Oscars at an afternoon ceremony along the beach in Santa Monica, Calif., on Mar. 1. The Spirit Awards will air that night on IFC.
Nominees were chosen by panels of film professionals. Members of Film Independent, including filmmakers and movie fans, are eligible to vote on the winners.

Online : http://www.spiritawards.com

Follow AP Film Writer Jessica Herndon on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/SomeKind

'Half Of A Yellow Sun' Starring Chiwetel Ejiofor & Thandie Newton

By Kevin Jaggernauth

Indie Wire, July 23, 2013

There's going to be a lot of Chiwetel Ejiofor coming your way by the end of the year. Next month he'll star in the drama "Savannah" opposite Jim Caviezel, which opens in limited release, and of course he's the lead in the Oscar touted "12 Years A Slave"  headed to TIFF.  But the actor has another film coming to Toronto as well, and instead of more images, a full length trailer [Half Of A Yellow Sun]  has arrived. 

"Half Of A Yellow Sun" finds Ejiofor co-starring opposite Thandie Newton in the adaptation of the bestselling (and Orange Prize for Fiction-winning) novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, set against the backdrop of the 1967-1970 Nigerian-Biafran war. Here's the official synopsis: 

An epic love story: Olanna and Kainene are glamorous twins, living a privileged city life in newly independent 1960s Nigeria. The two women make very different choices of lovers, but rivalry and betrayal must be set aside as their lives are swept up in the turbulence of war.

The cast is rounded out by Dominic Cooper, “Game of Thrones” star Joseph Mawle and “Attack the Block” breakout actor John Boyega with Biyi Bandele at the helm. All the awards for Ejiofor? Either way, we're just happy to get this much of him all at once. Watch below. 

Chiwetel Ejiofor

British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor poses with a BAFTA Award during a photocall to announce the nominations for the 2007 edition of the awards in central London January 12, 2007. Stephen Frears' "The Queen", portraying a confused monarch at the time of Princess Diana's death in 1997. Ejiofor's "A Season In The Congo" by Aime Cesaire and directed by Joe Wright starts July 6 until August 17, 2013 in London. The play is about the last months of Patrice Lumumba's life and the repercussions of his murder which brought to power the brutal and corrupt Mobutu Sese Seko in the Congo. Ejiofor, in the past year has been filming two long awaited projects, the adaptation of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's "Half of a Yellow Sun" and Steve McQueen's "Twelve Years A Slave" starring Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender and Paul Giamatti. 

Ejiofor was born in London's Forest Gate, to Nigerian parents of the Igbo tribe. His father, Arinze, was a doctor, and his mother, Obiajulu, was a pharmacist. In 1988, when Ejiofor was 11, tragedy occurred during a family trip to Nigeria for a wedding. After the celebrations, Ejiofor and his father were driving to Lagos when their car was involved in a head-on crash with a lorry. His father was killed, but Ejiofor survived despite being badly injured, receiving the scars on his forehead. Ejiofor began acting in school plays at the age of thirteen at Dulwich College and joined the National Youth Theater. He played the title role in Othelo at the Bloomsberry Theater in September 1995, and again at the Theater Royal, Glasgow in 1996 when he starred opposite rachael Sterling, who played Desdemona.

Image: Alessia Pierdeminecco