The Tunisian documentary clinched the award over documentaries: Lina Soualem’s Bye Bye Tiberias, Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson’s Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project, D. Smith’s Kokomo City, and Asmae El Moudir’s The Mother of All Lies.
By Hope Ibiale
Kaouther Ben Hania’s Four Daughters has been announced as the winner of the Best Documentary award at the 39th edition of the Film Independent Spirit Awards.
The Tunisian documentary clinched the award over documentaries: Lina Soualem’s Bye Bye Tiberias, Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson’s Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project, D. Smith’s Kokomo City, and Asmae El Moudir’s The Mother of All Lies.
Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Cord Jefferson, and Keivonn Montreal Woodard, also bagged awards. Randolph clinched an award in the Best Supporting Performance category for her role in The Holdovers and Jefferson walked away with the Best Screenplay award for American Fiction. Keivonn Montreal Woodard won the Best Breakthrough Performance in a New Scripted Series, his first Spirit Award for his role in The Last of Us.
Directed by Kaouther Ben Hania and produced by Nadim Cheikhrouha, Four Daughters is a fiction-infused docuseries. The film was Tunisia’s official submission for the upcoming edition of the Oscars ceremony. The co-recipient of the Cannes’ Best Documentary Prize, it also won Best International Film at the Munich Film Festival and the Jury Award at the International Competition of the Brussels Film Festival. The documentary also made the 2024 Oscars nominations list in the Best Documentary Feature Film category.
The Film Independent Spirit Awards, originally known as the Friends of Independent Awards, is a prestigious film award presented to talented independent filmmakers. The 39th Spirit Awards were hosted by Saturday Night Live alum Aidy Bryant, with prizes presented in several film and TV categories. The ceremony was streamed live on the IMDb and Film Independent’s YouTube channels and other social media platforms. Winners were voted on by Film Independent members.
See the full winners’ list here.