Brokeback wins top prizes at Independent Spirit Awards

The cowboy love story Brokeback Mountain won Best Feature and its creator Ang Lee was named Best Director Saturday at the Independent Spirit Awards. "In a year when the Oscars have such an independent spirit, I really treasure this encouragement," Lee said. "Mostly Brokeback Mountain is about sheep," said one of the film's producers, Diana Ossana. "So we want to thank our shepherd, Ang Lee," said the film's other producer, James Schamus.

Capote took the best-actor award for Philip Seymour Hoffman, who won the same prize at the Oscars for his role as author Truman Capote. The film also earned writer Dan Futterman the Best Screenplay award. Hoffman, who has won most other key best-actor honors this award season, cheered his fellow nominees: Jeff Daniels for The Squid and the Whale, Terrence Howard for Hustle & Flow, Heath Ledger for Brokeback Mountain, and David Strathairn for Good Night, and Good Luck. "It's ludicrous, and I've been given enough," Hoffman said. "And I want to share this so badly with all the nominees. I can't tell you how fantastic these gentlemen are."

Felicity Huffman was named Best Female Lead for Transamerica, in which she delivers a gender-bending performance as a transgender woman preparing for sex-change surgery. The film's director, Duncan Tucker, received the award for Best First Screenplay.

The ensemble drama Crash won for Best First Feature by a director (Paul Haggis) and netted a supporting-actor award for Matt Dillon. The supporting-actress prize went to Amy Adams for Junebug for her role as a sparkling Southern waif.

The Edward R. Murrow tale Good Night, and Good Luck earned the cinematography honor for Robert Elswit. The Palestinian terrorist tale Paradise Now was picked as Best Foreign Film, while Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room was honored as Best Documentary.

Presented by the nonprofit group Film Independent, the Independent Spirit Awards honor movies showcasing original, provocative subject matter shot on relatively modest budgets, with financing at least partly from outside the Hollywood studio system. Winners were chosen by the group's 6,000 members, who include actors, directors, writers, and other film professionals. (AP, with additional reporting by Advocate.com)