{"id":293365,"date":"2026-02-16T01:31:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T01:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/293365\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T01:31:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T01:31:08","slug":"clint-bentley-wins-best-director","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/293365\/","title":{"rendered":"Clint Bentley Wins Best Director"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tFollowing his win for best director at the 2026 Film Independent Spirit <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/awards\/\" id=\"auto-tag_awards_1\" data-tag=\"awards\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Awards<\/a> on Sunday, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/train-dreams\/\" id=\"auto-tag_train-dreams_1\" data-tag=\"train-dreams\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Train Dreams<\/a> director and co-writer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/clint-bentley\/\" id=\"auto-tag_clint-bentley_1\" data-tag=\"clint-bentley\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Clint Bentley<\/a> said that film can put some \u201cgoodness into the world\u201d while it may feel like \u201cit\u2019s on fire.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve been thinking a lot, I think as we all have, like, what\u2019s the point at times? It can feel as the world is turning upside down, and feels like it\u2019s on fire. It feels kind of meaningless to then get a bunch of people together and be like, \u2018Well, you\u2019re going to be the doctor and she\u2019s going to be the cop, and then you\u2019re going to say these words,&#8217;\u201d Bentley said on stage. \u201cAnd yet, in a world where there\u2019s so many people trying to put up walls and put people in cages and divide people, we\u2019re making little communities and we\u2019re putting goodness into the world. And when there\u2019s a lot of people trying to do the opposite, I think that\u2019s worth doing. Who knows where it\u2019ll lead us, but I think it\u2019s worth trying to make the world a little bit better every little step we can.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tTrain Dreams was co-written by Bentley and Greg Kwedar and stars Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones, Kerry Condon and William H. Macy. At the Spirit Awards, it was also nominated for best feature (which it won shortly after Bentley\u2019s win), best lead performance (Edgerton) and best cinematography, which it also won. It is also up for four Academy Awards, including best picture.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tDuring his acceptance speech, Bentley also thanked the film\u2019s producer for \u201cgiving me the courage to take on Denis Johnson\u2019s novel, Edgerton and Kwedar and his wife, both of whom couldn\u2019t be in attendance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tNominees in the best director category were Mary Bronstein for If I Had Legs I\u2019d Kick You, Lloyd Lee Choi for Lucky Lu, Ira Sachs for Peter Hujar\u2019s Day and Eva Victor for Sorry, Baby.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tFor a full list of winners, click <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/lists\/2026-independent-spirit-awards-winners-list\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>. You can also see all of the blue carpet arrivals <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/lists\/2026-independent-spirit-awards-winners-list\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following his win for best director at the 2026 Film Independent Spirit Awards on Sunday, Train Dreams director&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293366,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1096,78552,146,99202,85,99203,46,148904,73900],"class_list":{"0":"post-293365","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-awards","9":"tag-clint-bentley","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-film-independent-spirit-awards","12":"tag-il","13":"tag-independent-spirit-awards","14":"tag-israel","15":"tag-spirit-awards-2026","16":"tag-train-dreams"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}