LOS ANGELES – Everything Everywhere All At Once swept up yet more film prizes last Saturday, as it was named best feature at the Spirit Awards – one of the last major Hollywood ceremonies before this weekend’s Oscars.

It won in every category it was nominated, at a ceremony held in a giant tent at Los Angeles’ Santa Monica beach to celebrate low- and mid-budget movies.

Its voters granted a whopping seven awards to the film, which was made for around US$25 million (S$34 million) and became independent studio A24‘s biggest hit, with a global box-office gross above US$100 million.

“This is too many. We’re so lucky,” said co-director Daniel Scheinert, collecting the night’s final prize.

Michelle Yeoh won best lead performance and Stephanie Hsu won best breakthrough performance.

It is the first year in which the Film Independent Spirit Awards have opted for gender-neutral acting categories.

“Michelle, you beat a bunch of men,” yelled Jamie Lee Curtis in the backstage press room.

Curtis was the film’s only nominee who failed to win – losing best supporting performance to her co-star Ke Huy Quan.

Scheinert and Daniel Kwan won director and best screenplay, and the film also won best editing.

The absurdist sci-fi comedy stars Yeoh as the matriarch of a Chinese-American laundromat-owning family, who end up fighting a universe-hopping supervillain while undergoing a tax audit.

“You believed in us. You believed in the masterpiece from the Daniels,” said Yeoh, addressing the studio’s producers.

“My boys, thank you for writing such an incredible script that gave us the opportunity to be here, to be seen, to be heard.”

This year’s Spirit Awards were held the weekend before the Oscars on March 12.

Voting for the season-concluding Academy Awards is currently under way.

Final Oscars voting closes on Tuesday, before Hollywood’s most coveted golden statuettes are handed out at a glitzy ceremony on Sunday.

Among the films that could receive a late Oscars boost from their Spirit Award wins Saturday were best documentary All The Beauty And The Bloodshed, best first feature Aftersun and best cinematography winner Tar.

Women Talking received the pre-announced Robert Altman Award, which honours a film’s director, casting director and overall cast.

But in a repeat of scenes at recent high-profile prize-giving ceremonies from Hollywood’s actors’, producers’ and directors’ guilds, the night’s big winner was Everything Everywhere All At Once, which cemented its already clear Academy Award front runner status.

It leads the nominations at the Oscars, with 11 nods. AFP