The Artist, as expected, was the big winner at yesterday’s 27th Film Independent Spirit Awards, winning awards for Best Feature, Best Director, Best Male Lead and Best Cinematography. Other winners included My Week With Marilyn, which won Best Female Lead; The Descendants, which won Best Supporting Female and Best Screenplay; Beginners, which won Best Supporting Male and Pariah, which won the John Cassavetes Award; 50/50, which won Best First Screenplay; Margin Call, which won Best First Feature; A Separation, which won Best International Film; and The Interrupters, which won Best Documentary.

The 5th annual Robert Altman Award was given to one film’s director, casting director, and ensemble cast. J. C. Chandor’s Margin Call received this award, along with casting directors Tiffany Little Canfield and Bernard Telsey and ensemble cast members Penn Badgley, Simon Baker, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Mary McDonnell, Demi Moore, Zachary Quinto, Kevin Spacey and Stanley Tucci.

The Spirit Awards was the first event to exclusively honor independent film, with artists receiving industry recognition first at the Spirit Awards include Joel & Ethan Coen, Spike Lee, Oliver Stone, Ashley Judd, Robert Rodriguez, David O. Russell, Edward Burns, Aaron Eckhart, Neil LaBute, Darren Aronofsky, Spike Jonze, Charlie Kaufman, Hilary Swank, Marc Forster, Todd Field, Christopher Nolan, Zach Braff, Amy Adams and many more.

The following is a complete list of 27th Film Independent Spirit Awards winners:

Best Feature – The Artist             

Best Director – Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist

Best Screenplay – Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, Jim Rash, The Descendants

Best First Feature – Margin Call, Director: J.C. Chandor

Best First Screenplay – Will Reiser, 50/50

John Cassavetes Award (For the best feature made under $500,000) –  Writer/Director: Dee Rees, Pariah                                                        
Best Supporting Female – Shailene Woodley, The Descendants

Best Supporting Male – Christopher Plummer, Beginners

Best Female – Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn

Best Male – Jean Dujardin, The Artist

Best Cinematography – Guillaume Schiffman, The Artist

Best Foreign Film – A Separation, Director: Asghar Farhadi

Best Documentary – The Interrupters, Director: Steve James

Two new filmmaker grants were awarded during the ceremony. The 2012 Chaz and Roger Ebert Fellowship, which recognizes a social-issue documentary and includes a cash grant of $10,000, was given to Katie Fairfax Wright and Malika Zouhali-Worrall, co-directors of the documentary Call Me Kuchu. The film was developed in Film Independent’s 2011 Documentary Lab and has its world premiere at the 2012 Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the Teddy Award for Best Documentary.

The 2012 Giorgio Armani Directing Fellowship, which includes a cash grant of $10,000, was awarded to Grace Lee, director of the documentary American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs. The film, currently in post-production, is in Film Independent’s 2012 Documentary Lab.

On January 14th, the following winners were honored at the Spirit Awards Filmmaker Grant and Nominee Brunch at BOA Steakhouse in West Hollywood:

The 18th Annual Audi Someone to Watch Award was given to Mark Jackson, director of Without. The $25,000 unrestricted grant, funded for the first time by Audi, recognizes a talented filmmaker of singular vision who has not received appropriate recognition.

The 17th Annual Nokia Truer Than Fiction Award was given to Heather Courtney, director of Where Soldiers Come From. The $25,000 unrestricted grant, funded by Nokia, is presented to an emerging director of non-fiction features who has not yet received significant recognition.

The 15th Annual Piaget Producers Award was given to Sophia Lin, producer of Take Shelter. The $25,000 unrestricted grant, funded by Piaget, is presented to an emerging producer who, despite highly limited resources demonstrates the creativity, tenacity, and vision required to produce quality, independent films.

The 2nd Annual Jameson FIND Your Audience Award, which helps one low-budget independent film find a broader audience, was given to Benjamin Murray and Alysa Nahmias, co-directors of Unfinished Spaces. The $40,000 marketing and distribution grant, funded by Jameson® Irish Whiskey, was designed to meet independent filmmakers’ biggest challenge today: How to get their films out into the marketplace.