The top prize winner at Sundance last year, the teen drama "Quinceanera," won the John Cassavetes Award for a film shot for less than $500,000.

"Quinceanera" centers on a Mexican-American teen ostracized by her family after she becomes pregnant.

Jason Reitman won the screenplay award for the tobacco-industry satire "Thank You For Smoking," which he also directed.

Robert Altman — nominated as best director for his final film, "A Prairie Home Companion" — was saluted with an honorary Spirit Award for his lifetime devotion to independent film. Altman died last November.

Spirit Awards organizers have created a new prize, the Robert Altman Award, which beginning next year will be given out to a film's director and acting ensemble — a nod to Altman's gift for overseeing large, overlapping casts.

Other Spirit Award winners were:

—Best foreign film, "The Lives of Others," Germany, directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck.

—Best documentary, "The Road to Guantanamo," directed by Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross.

—Best first feature, "Sweet Land," directed by Ali Selim.

—Best cinematography, Guillermo Navarro, "Pan's Labyrinth."

The Spirit Awards are presented by the cinema group Film Independent to films costing less than $20 million to produce. Other guidelines for nominations include a film's uniqueness of vision, original, provocative subject matter and percentage of financing that comes from independent sources outside the Hollywood studio system.