Brace yourself: Awards season is upon us.

With this morning’s announcement of the Independent Spirit Award nominations, the starter gun has gone off for the 2011 awards derby. If the Spirit’s big love for Take Shelter is any indicator, Austinite Jeff Nichols‘ dance card will be very full this season.

Take Shelter scored noms for Best Feature, Best Director, Best Male Lead for Michael Shannon, Best Supporting Female Lead for Jessica Chastain, and the Piaget Producers Award for Sophia Lin.

Other nominations with a local angle include Heather Courtney‘s Where Soldiers Come From, which is up for the Truer Than Fiction award; UT grad and Jay Van Hoy, one of five producers nominated for Beginners; and former Austinite John Hawkes, who was recognized for Supporting Male in Martha Marcy May Marlene.

Also announced today were the New York Film Critics Circle Awards, the first of roundabouts a gazillion critics groups’ announcements to come. (The Austin Film Critics Association is tentatively set to announce on Dec. 21.) The NYFCC awarded Jessica Chastain Best Supporting Actress for her work in The Help, Take Shelter, and Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life (another notch on the Austin bedpost). The NYFCC also awarded cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki‘s breathtaking work in Tree of Life.

This article appears in November 25 • 2011.

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A graduate of the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas, Kimberley has written about film, books, and pop culture for The Austin Chronicle since 2000. She was named Editor of the Chronicle in 2016; she previously served as the paper’s Managing Editor, Screens Editor, Books Editor, and proofreader. Her work has been awarded by the Association of Alternative Newsmedia for excellence in arts criticism, team reporting, and special section (Best of Austin). The Austin Alliance for Women...