Amy and Tina: watch your backs. It’s just been announced that this year’s Film Independent Spirit Awards will be hosted by the comedy powerhouse duo of SNL‘s Kate McKinnon and Silicon Valley‘s Kumail Nanjiani. The awards will be held in Santa Monica on February 27. The ceremony will be broadcast live on IFC at 5 p.m. EST.
“We’re ridiculously excited to have Kate and Kumail host the Spirit Awards this year,” says Film Independent President Josh Welsh, adding “I can’t wait to see what creative mayhem they bring to the show.” The Independent Spirit Awards usually have the loosest, most absurd ceremonies of the big, crowded, stuffy, and generally insufferable awards season, so it makes perfect sense that these two very different, very fresh comedians have been named as the hosts.
A full list of nominees can be found here, but a brief comment: these nominees are much more exciting than those named by the Golden Globes’ Hollywood Foreign Press. They’ve got Tangerine‘s Sean Baker and It Follows‘ David Robert Mitchell as Best Director noms, and Charlie Kaufman’s Anomalisa as a Best Feature nom. Great hosts, unusual nominees, and the guarantee of “mayhem”? Sounds not so bad, as far as these awards things are concerned.