THE 31st Independent Film Spirit Awards provided a clear rebuke to the less diverse Oscars, bestowing awards on “Beasts of No Nation” co-stars Idris Elba and Abraham Attah and “Tangerine” star Mya Taylor, making her the first transgender actress to win at the annual awards.

    The newsroom drama “Spotlight” was the big winner at the Spirits on Saturday, the day before it’s to compete for best picture at the Academy Awards. Tom McCarthy’s film about the Boston Globe investigation into sex abuse by Catholic priests won a leading four awards, including best picture, best director for McCarthy, best screenplay and the Robert Altman award for ensemble.

    But this year’s Spirit Awards, an annual dressed-down oceanside indie antidote to the Oscars, was most remarkable for its more diverse nominees and winners. Neither Elba, Attah nor Taylor was even nominated for Oscars.

    In recent years, the Spirits have overlapped considerably with the Oscars, including the last two top winners: “Birdman” and “12 Years a Slave.” But this year, the Spirits — which honor films made for US$20 million or less — widely deviated from their stuffier crosstown counterparts.

    “Spotlight” was the only best picture nominee up for the Spirits’ top award; the bigger budget Oscar favorites it’s vying with, “The Revenant” and “The Big Short,” didn’t qualify. And while the Oscars have been beset by criticism for a second straight year of all-white acting nominees, the Spirits boasted five nonwhite nominees out of 20 — and three of them won.

    The only Oscar acting favorite, Brie Larson, added another win for her performance in the captive drama “Room.” Emma Donoghue, the novelist-turned-screenwriter, also won for best adapted screenplay for the film.

    The foreign language favorite from Hungary, Laszlo Nemes’ Holocaust drama “Son of Saul” took best international film. And the documentary front-runner, the Indonesian genocide film “Look of Silence” won best documentary.(SD-Agencies)