"Moonlight" director Barry Jenkins also won the Independent Spirit Awards for Best Director and Best Screenplay.

“Moonlight” took home the award for Best Feature Film at the Independent Spirit Awards in Los Angeles on Saturday, the final awards ceremony of the season before Sunday’s Academy Awards. The film swept the Independent Spirit Awards, with six wins at the end of the night.

Director Barry Jenkins won the award for Best Director and Best Screenplay, the latter of which he shared with playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney. McCraney wrote the play upon which “Moonlight” is based, “In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue.” “Moonlight” also won the Robert Altman award and the awards for Best Cinematography and Best Editing.

“The films that have been discussed and lauded in this last year really speak to this appetite and this need for stories that are bold and defy easy categorization,” said “Moonlight” producer Adele Romanski. “I think people are telling us that’s what they want to see and we hear you and we’re going to keep answering that call.”

READ MORE: 2017 Independent Spirit Awards: Who Will Win and Who Should Win — Critics Survey

The other nominees for Best Feature Film were “American Honey,” “Chronic,” “Jackie” and “Manchester by the Sea.”

Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.</s>Mahershala Ali has won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his part as Juan in Moonlight. Moonlight was nominated for 8 Oscars in total; this marks the film’s first. At the Screen Actors’ Guild Awards earlier this year, Ali also took home the award for Best Supporting Actor.

Revisit “Human After All: On Janelle Monáe in Hidden Figures and Moonlight,” “Director Barry Jenkins on the Music that Made Moonlight,” and “No More Classic Men: On Moonlight’s Bizarre Jidenna Moment” over on the Pitch.

For more of Pitchfork’s coverage of this year’s Oscars, click here.</s>LOS ANGELES (AP) — The 89th Academy Awards got off on the right foot, with a song and dance, but ended with the most stunning mistake ever to befall the esteemed awards show when the best picture Oscar was presented to the wrong movie. Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty, holding an incorrect envelope, wrongly presented the top prize to “La La Land,” instead of “Moonlight.”

The moment at the conclusion of the Sunday night show was so jaw-dropping, it eclipsed everything else in a ceremony that was packed to the brim with Donald Trump jabs, fun stunts, heartfelt positivity and a stunning upset by “Moonlight” over what had been a “La La” juggernaut throughout award season. Yet somehow, even the embarrassing moment pivoted into grace.

As confusion and bafflement overwhelmed those in the Dolby Theatre and at home on their couches, “Moonlight” director Barry Jenkins and “La La Land” director Damien Chazelle shared a hug on the back of the stage, out of sight from the television cameras.

“The folks of ‘La La Land’ were so gracious. I can’t imagine being in their position and having to do that,” Jenkins told reporters backstage. “It was unfortunate that things happened as they did but, goddamn, we won best picture.”

Oscar tabulators PwC, in their 83rd year providing the service to the academy, later apologized to all in a statement and are investigating why it happened.

There’s no denying, though, that “Moonlight’s” win over “La La Land” was a massive upset, made only more pointed by the envelope gaffe. Chazelle’s candy-colored musical was widely presumed to be a shoo-in for the top prize after its record-tying 14 nominations and a relative sweep of award season. The film still won six Oscars, including best director for Chazelle, who at 32 became the youngest ever to take the prize, and for score, song (“City of Stars”) and actress to Emma Stone.

The actress, who pledged her deep love of “Moonlight,” said later, “Is that the craziest Oscar moment of all time? Cool!”

The academy usually throws awards at films that gaze lovingly at Hollywood, but Barry Jenkins’ heartfelt coming-of-age drama seduced academy voters in the end — a subtle tide change perhaps informed by both a prickly political climate and an urgent imperative to honor more diverse films after two consecutive years of OscarsSoWhite.

Diversity could be found in every corner of the awards this year, with supporting acting wins for “Moonlight’s” Mahershala Ali and “Fences'” Viola Davis, although the best actor category proved to be a bit of an upset when Casey Affleck won for “Manchester by the Sea” over Denzel Washington of “Fences,” who had picked up momentum in recent weeks.

The improvement followed efforts by Academy of Motions Pictures Arts and Sciences President Cheryl Boone Isaacs to diversify the membership of the largely white, older and male film academy. “Tonight is proof that art has no borders, no single language and does not belong to a single faith,” said Isaacs.

Davis gave a particularly powerful speech in which she praised the late “Fences” playwright August Wilson who, she said, “Exhumed and exalted the ordinary people.” Kimmel said later that Davis, “Just got nominated for an Emmy for that speech.”

Ezra Edelman, whose nearly eight hour epic “O.J.: Made in America” took best documentary, dedicated the award to the victims of the famous crime, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.

Rich Moore, one of the three directors of Disney’s best animated film winner “Zootopia,” described the movie as about “tolerance being more powerful than fear of the other.”

The majority of speeches were moving and personal and generally in praise of art’s ability to create empathy in the world, including Jenkins’ in his win for adapted screenplay, who said, “All you people out there who feel like there isn’t a mirror out there for you, the Academy has your back, the ACLU has your back, and for the next four years we will not leave you alone, we will not forget you.” But not one speech came close to Meryl Streep’s Golden Globes barnburner.

“Personally, I didn’t say anything because my head was completely blank,” Affleck said backstage of his not political speech.

Instead, politics stayed largely with host Jimmy Kimmel, who kept his barbs coy and irreverent, stating at the start that he wasn’t the man to unite the country.

The host peppered the evening with digs at President Trump, at one point asking the crowd to stand for the “overrated Meryl Streep,” and, later, for any news outlet with the word “Times” in its name to leave, saying “we have no tolerance for fake news.”

Kimmel even jokingly thanked the president for shifting the focus of the night.

“Remember last year when it seemed like the Oscars were racist?” he said in the opening.

The evening’s most blunt protests against Trump came not from the A-list stars but from foreigners, a few of whom were not even in attendance and could communicate their sentiments only through statements.

Kimmel, as if predicting that this would be the case, said early that the Oscars are watched by 225 countries “that now hate us.”

Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, whose “The Salesman” won best foreign film, his second win in the category, did not attend the ceremony in protest of Trump’s travel ban to seven predominantly Muslim nations.

“I’m sorry I’m not with you tonight,” it read. “My absence is out of respect for the people of my country and those of other six nations who have been disrespected by the inhumane law that bans entry of immigrants to the U.S.”

Gael Garcia Bernal, the Mexican actor, while presenting an award also declared: “As a migrant worker, as a Mexican, and as a human being, I am against any wall.”

But, of course, the big best picture mistake will be the thing that history remembers abou the 89th Academy Awards.

“Let’s remember this is just an awards show,” Kimmel said at the close. “I knew I would screw this show up, I really did. I promise I’ll never come back.”</s>The coming-of-age drama about a gay black man growing up in Miami became the first film with an all-black cast to win the Academy Award for best picture.

The movie, whose cast includes best supporting actor winner Mahershala Ali, Naomie Harris, Trevante Rhodes and Janelle Monáe, has been a critical darling during awards season.

With the win, it shattered a glass ceiling for black films.

"Very clearly, even in my dreams this could not be true," director Barry Jenkins said in amazement when it was announced that "Moonlight," not "La La Land," had won. "But to hell with dreams, I'm done with it, 'cause this is true. Oh my goodness."

In 2014, "12 Years a Slave" won best picture, but its cast was not all black. Both "Moonlight" and "12 Years" were produced by Brad Pitt's Plan B company. Ali, who played a sympathetic drug dealer who mentors a bullied young man, is the first Muslim actor to win best supporting actor. Jenkins became the first African American to score nominations for best director, best picture and best adapted screenplay in the same year. The film's co-editor, Joi McMillon, became the first African American to earn a nomination for achievement in film editing. The "Moonlight" win came in a year in which the Academy has been hailed for more diversity. White actors had especially dominated the major acting categories for two years, giving rise to the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag. This year, seven of the 20 nominees were people of color. Viola Davis, who won best supporting actress, became only the second black woman to win an Emmy, an Oscar and a Tony for acting. Whoopi Goldberg is the other, and the only black actor to have a so-called EGOT -- an Emmy, Grammy, Tony and Oscar. April Reign, who created the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag, tweeted Sunday night about the importance of the evening. "Viola, Mahershala, and the wins for Moonlight happened because they were DESERVED," she wrote. "Not because of #OscarsSoWhite. I want that very clear." Viola, Mahershala, and the wins for Moonlight happened because they were DESERVED. Not because of #OscarsSoWhite. I want that very clear. — April (@ReignOfApril) February 27, 2017 Earlier in the evening, Jenkins and Tarell Alvin McCraney, who wrote the play that became "Moonlight" and co-wrote the screenplay, won the Oscar for best adapted screenplay. The pair paid homage to the disenfranchised in their acceptance speech for that award. Jenkins said: "All you people out there who feel like there's no mirror for you, that your life is not reflected, the Academy has your back, the ACLU has your back, we have your back and for the next four years we will not leave you alone, we will not forget you."</s>In the wake of one of the biggest mix-ups in Oscar history Best Supporting Actor winner Mahershala Ali graciously addressed the issue in the press room Sunday night following the awards.Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway took the stage to announce the biggest award of the night, but when Beatty opened the envelope confusion took over his face."You know, "La La Land" has done so well and has resonated with so many people especially in this time when people need a sense of buoyancy in their life and need some hope and light," Ali said, praising the film that was mistakenly read out as Best Picture by Faye Dunaway. "So that film has really impacted people sort of in a very different way than "Moonlight" so when their name was read I wasn't really surprised."He went on to talk about his joy for the cast and crew of "La La Land" and their accomplishments.Oakland born actor then described the shock, "When I did see security people coming out on stage and their moment was being disrupted in some way I got really worried."The Northern California native shared his apprehensions about accepting the award after the mistake, "I didn't want to go up there and take something from somebody," he said. "It's very hard to feel joy in a moment like that you know, but because somebody else -- it's in front of them, but I feel very fortunate for all of us to have walked away with the Best Picture award. It's pretty remarkable.""La La Land" went home with five awards including Best Actress for Emma Stone and Best Direction for Damien Chazelle.</s>JOHN CASSAVETES AWARD

Given to the best feature made for under $500,000. Award given to the writer, director and producer. Executive Producers are not awarded.

WINNER: Barry Jenkins, Story By Tarell Alvin McCraney, “Moonlight”

Kenneth Lonergan, “Manchester by the Sea”

Mike Mills, “20th Century Women”

Ira Sachs & Mauricio Zacharias, “Little Men”

Taylor Sheridan, “Hell or High Water”

Ava Berkofsky, “Free In Deed”

Lol Crawley, “The Childhood of a Leader”

Zach Kuperstein, “The Eyes of My Mother”

WINNER: James Laxton, “Moonlight”

Robbie Ryan, “American Honey”

Matthew Hannam, “Swiss Army Man”

Jennifer Lame, “Manchester by the Sea”

WINNER: Joi McMillon, Nat Sanders, “Moonlight”

Jake Roberts, “Hell or High Water”

Sebastián Sepúlveda, “Jackie”

WINNER: Casey Affleck, “Manchester by the Sea”

David Harewood, “Free In Deed”

Viggo Mortensen, “Captain Fantastic”

Jesse Plemons, “Other People”

Tim Roth, “Chronic”

Ralph Fiennes, “A Bigger Splash”

WINNER: Ben Foster, “Hell or High Water”

Lucas Hedges, “Manchester by the Sea”

Shia LaBeouf, “American Honey”

Craig Robinson, “Morris from America”

ROBERT ALTMAN AWARD – (Given to one film’s director, casting director and ensemble cast)

BEST DOCUMENTARY (Award given to the director and producer)

“13th”

“Cameraperson”

“I Am Not Your Negro”

WINNER: “O.J.: Made in America”

“Sonita”

“Under the Sun”

BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM (Award given to the director)

The Indie Spirit Awards aren't always an indicator of how things will go the following night at the Oscars, but you can bet A24 and the folks behindare hoping it is this year. Barry Jenkins' acclaimed drama won the night with a whopping six awards, including Best Feature, Best Director, and Best Ensemble. Horror filmcame away with two wins, including Best First Feature, while the acting wins turned out pretty interesting. While Casey Affleck still won Best Actor for, Oscar favorite Mahershala Ali wasn't even nominated for Best Supporting Actor, with that award going to Ben Foster for. Isabelle Huppert won Best Actress for, while Molly Shannon was shown some much-deserved love forThe full list of winners is below.</s>In the wake of one of the biggest mix-ups in Oscar history Best Supporting Actor winner Mahershala Ali graciously addressed the issue in the press room Sunday night following the awards.Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway took the stage to announce the biggest award of the night, but when Beatty opened the envelope confusion took over his face."You know, "La La Land" has done so well and has resonated with so many people especially in this time when people need a sense of buoyancy in their life and need some hope and light," Ali said, praising the film that was mistakenly read out as Best Picture by Faye Dunaway. "So that film has really impacted people sort of in a very different way than "Moonlight" so when their name was read I wasn't really surprised."He went on to talk about his joy for the cast and crew of "La La Land" and their accomplishments.Oakland born actor then described the shock, "When I did see security people coming out on stage and their moment was being disrupted in some way I got really worried."The Northern California native shared his apprehensions about accepting the award after the mistake, "I didn't want to go up there and take something from somebody," he said. "It's very hard to feel joy in a moment like that you know, but because somebody else -- it's in front of them, but I feel very fortunate for all of us to have walked away with the Best Picture award. It's pretty remarkable.""La La Land" went home with five awards including Best Actress for Emma Stone and Best Direction for Damien Chazelle.</s>Moonlight has won best picture at the Academy Awards in a historic Oscar upset that saw Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty reading out the wrong winner. Shock and chaos spread through the Dolby Theatre when producers of La La Land were stopped in the middle of their acceptance speeches to be informed that Moonlight was the correct winner</s>LOS ANGELES (AP) — The 89th Academy Awards got off on the right foot, with a song and dance, but ended with the most stunning mistake ever to befall the esteemed awards show when the best picture Oscar was presented to the wrong movie. Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty, holding an incorrect envelope, wrongly presented the top prize to “La La Land,” instead of “Moonlight.”

The moment at the conclusion of the Sunday night show was so jaw-dropping, it eclipsed everything else in a ceremony that was packed to the brim with Donald Trump jabs, fun stunts, heartfelt positivity and a stunning upset by “Moonlight” over what had been a “La La” juggernaut throughout award season. Yet somehow, even the embarrassing moment pivoted into grace.

As confusion and bafflement overwhelmed those in the Dolby Theatre and at home on their couches, “Moonlight” director Barry Jenkins and “La La Land” director Damien Chazelle shared a hug on the back of the stage, out of sight from the television cameras.

“The folks of ‘La La Land’ were so gracious. I can’t imagine being in their position and having to do that,” Jenkins told reporters backstage. “It was unfortunate that things happened as they did but, goddamn, we won best picture.”

Oscar tabulators PwC, in their 83rd year providing the service to the academy, later apologized to all in a statement and are investigating why it happened.

There’s no denying, though, that “Moonlight’s” win over “La La Land” was a massive upset, made only more pointed by the envelope gaffe. Chazelle’s candy-colored musical was widely presumed to be a shoo-in for the top prize after its record-tying 14 nominations and a relative sweep of award season. The film still won six Oscars, including best director for Chazelle, who at 32 became the youngest ever to take the prize, and for score, song (“City of Stars”) and actress to Emma Stone.

The actress, who pledged her deep love of “Moonlight,” said later, “Is that the craziest Oscar moment of all time? Cool!”

The academy usually throws awards at films that gaze lovingly at Hollywood, but Barry Jenkins’ heartfelt coming-of-age drama seduced academy voters in the end — a subtle tide change perhaps informed by both a prickly political climate and an urgent imperative to honor more diverse films after two consecutive years of OscarsSoWhite.

Diversity could be found in every corner of the awards this year, with supporting acting wins for “Moonlight’s” Mahershala Ali and “Fences'” Viola Davis, although the best actor category proved to be a bit of an upset when Casey Affleck won for “Manchester by the Sea” over Denzel Washington of “Fences,” who had picked up momentum in recent weeks.

The improvement followed efforts by Academy of Motions Pictures Arts and Sciences President Cheryl Boone Isaacs to diversify the membership of the largely white, older and male film academy. “Tonight is proof that art has no borders, no single language and does not belong to a single faith,” said Isaacs.

Davis gave a particularly powerful speech in which she praised the late “Fences” playwright August Wilson who, she said, “Exhumed and exalted the ordinary people.” Kimmel said later that Davis, “Just got nominated for an Emmy for that speech.”

Ezra Edelman, whose nearly eight hour epic “O.J.: Made in America” took best documentary, dedicated the award to the victims of the famous crime, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.

Rich Moore, one of the three directors of Disney’s best animated film winner “Zootopia,” described the movie as about “tolerance being more powerful than fear of the other.”

The majority of speeches were moving and personal and generally in praise of art’s ability to create empathy in the world, including Jenkins’ in his win for adapted screenplay, who said, “All you people out there who feel like there isn’t a mirror out there for you, the Academy has your back, the ACLU has your back, and for the next four years we will not leave you alone, we will not forget you.” But not one speech came close to Meryl Streep’s Golden Globes barnburner.

“Personally, I didn’t say anything because my head was completely blank,” Affleck said backstage of his not political speech.

Instead, politics stayed largely with host Jimmy Kimmel, who kept his barbs coy and irreverent, stating at the start that he wasn’t the man to unite the country.

The host peppered the evening with digs at President Trump, at one point asking the crowd to stand for the “overrated Meryl Streep,” and, later, for any news outlet with the word “Times” in its name to leave, saying “we have no tolerance for fake news.”

Kimmel even jokingly thanked the president for shifting the focus of the night.

“Remember last year when it seemed like the Oscars were racist?” he said in the opening.

The evening’s most blunt protests against Trump came not from the A-list stars but from foreigners, a few of whom were not even in attendance and could communicate their sentiments only through statements.

Kimmel, as if predicting that this would be the case, said early that the Oscars are watched by 225 countries “that now hate us.”

Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, whose “The Salesman” won best foreign film, his second win in the category, did not attend the ceremony in protest of Trump’s travel ban to seven predominantly Muslim nations.

“I’m sorry I’m not with you tonight,” it read. “My absence is out of respect for the people of my country and those of other six nations who have been disrespected by the inhumane law that bans entry of immigrants to the U.S.”

Gael Garcia Bernal, the Mexican actor, while presenting an award also declared: “As a migrant worker, as a Mexican, and as a human being, I am against any wall.”

But, of course, the big best picture mistake will be the thing that history remembers abou the 89th Academy Awards.

“Let’s remember this is just an awards show,” Kimmel said at the close. “I knew I would screw this show up, I really did. I promise I’ll never come back.”</s>The coming-of-age drama about a gay black man growing up in Miami became the first film with an all-black cast to win the Academy Award for best picture.

The movie, whose cast includes best supporting actor winner Mahershala Ali, Naomie Harris, Trevante Rhodes and Janelle Monáe, has been a critical darling during awards season.

With the win, it shattered a glass ceiling for black films.

"Very clearly, even in my dreams this could not be true," director Barry Jenkins said in amazement when it was announced that "Moonlight," not "La La Land," had won. "But to hell with dreams, I'm done with it, 'cause this is true. Oh my goodness."

In 2014, "12 Years a Slave" won best picture, but its cast was not all black. Both "Moonlight" and "12 Years" were produced by Brad Pitt's Plan B company. Ali, who played a sympathetic drug dealer who mentors a bullied young man, is the first Muslim actor to win best supporting actor. Jenkins became the first African American to score nominations for best director, best picture and best adapted screenplay in the same year. The film's co-editor, Joi McMillon, became the first African American to earn a nomination for achievement in film editing. The "Moonlight" win came in a year in which the Academy has been hailed for more diversity. White actors had especially dominated the major acting categories for two years, giving rise to the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag. This year, seven of the 20 nominees were people of color. Viola Davis, who won best supporting actress, became only the second black woman to win an Emmy, an Oscar and a Tony for acting. Whoopi Goldberg is the other, and the only black actor to have a so-called EGOT -- an Emmy, Grammy, Tony and Oscar. April Reign, who created the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag, tweeted Sunday night about the importance of the evening. "Viola, Mahershala, and the wins for Moonlight happened because they were DESERVED," she wrote. "Not because of #OscarsSoWhite. I want that very clear." Viola, Mahershala, and the wins for Moonlight happened because they were DESERVED. Not because of #OscarsSoWhite. I want that very clear. — April (@ReignOfApril) February 27, 2017 Earlier in the evening, Jenkins and Tarell Alvin McCraney, who wrote the play that became "Moonlight" and co-wrote the screenplay, won the Oscar for best adapted screenplay. The pair paid homage to the disenfranchised in their acceptance speech for that award. Jenkins said: "All you people out there who feel like there's no mirror for you, that your life is not reflected, the Academy has your back, the ACLU has your back, we have your back and for the next four years we will not leave you alone, we will not forget you."
Mahershala Ali wins the Best Supporting Actor for his role in Moonlight. He is the first Muslim American to win the award.