By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

Austin Film Critics Association 2011 Awards

Posted Wednesday, December 28th, 2011 - 2 Comments »

December 28, 2011 (Austin, TX) – The Austin Film Critics Association today announced its 2011 awards, with Martin Scorsese’s ode to classic cinema, HUGO, winning Best Film. It lead a group of awards that AFCA Founder and President Cole Dabney called “a unique blend highlighting the best of both Hollywood and indie filmmaking.”

The hyper-stylized crime thriller DRIVE took home three awards, including Best Director for Nicolas Winding Refn, Best Adapted Screenplay for writer Hossein Amini, and Best Supporting Actor for Albert Brooks. It was also named the second best film of the year in the AFCA’s overall Top 10 List.

Michael Shannon was named Best Actor, while Jessica Chastain received Best Supporting Actress for their performances in TAKE SHELTER. Austinite Jeff Nichols was also awarded Best Austin Film for his direction and conception of the film, hailed at film festivals this year from Sundance to Cannes to Toronto.

Tilda Swinton was named Best Actress for her portrayal as a mother struggling with her first-born child’s madness and murder in WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN, while Woody Allen was awarded Best Original Screenplay for MIDNIGHT IN PARIS and Emmanuel Lubezki won his 2nd AFCA Award for Best Cinematography, this time for the Austin-made THE TREE OF LIFE.

The British film ATTACK THE BLOCK, which premiered at Austin’s own South by Southwest Film Festival, was awarded two prizes. Joe Cornish, who wrote and directed the alien invasion sci-fi/comedy, won Best First Film while composer Steven Price received Best Original Score.

Jee-woon Kim’s South Korean revenge thriller I SAW THE DEVIL (Akmareul boatda) won Best Foreign Language Film, while the Formula One Racing biography SENNA took home Best Documentary. RANGO, which features the voice-work of Johnny Depp and was directed by Gore Verbinski in his non-live action debut, was named Best Animated Film.

For her incredibly diverse and complex work in 2011, the AFCA also awarded Jessica Chastain its Robert R. “Bobby” McCurdy Memorial Breakthrough Artist Award. Ms. Chastain appeared in six films in 2011, including TAKE SHELTER, THE TREE OF LIFE, THE HELP, THE DEBT, CORIOLANUS and TEXAS KILLING FIELDS. The award is now named after Bobby McCurdy, a much-loved member of the AFCA who co-founded the organization with Dabney. He passed away suddenly during last year’s voting process; McCurdy’s enthusiasm for film made the Breakthrough Artist Award his favorite award to discuss and forecast as part of the AFCA voting process.

All details can be found at the AFCA website http://austinfilmcritics.org; the AFCA is a group dedicated to supporting the best in film, whether at the international, national, or local level, whose members contribute to publications and outlets as diverse as Ain’t It Cool News, the Austin American-Statesman, the Austin Chronicle, CNN, Fandango, Film.com, Film School Rejects, Fox News, Hollywood.com, INsite Magazine, MSN Movies, Movies.com, Slackerwood, Spill.com and Twitch, among others.

Best Film:
Hugo

Best Director:
Nicolas Winding Refn, Drive

Best Actor:
Michael Shannon, Take Shelter

Best Actress:
Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin

Best Supporting Actor:
Albert Brooks, Drive

Best Supporting Actress:
Jessica Chastain, Take Shelter

Best Original Screenplay:
Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen

Best Adapted Screenplay:
Drive, Hossein Amini

Best Cinematography:
The Tree of Life, Emmanuel Lubezki

Best Original Score:
Attack the Block, Steven Price

Best Foreign Language Film:
I Saw the Devil, South Korea [dir: Jee-woon Kim]

Best Documentary:
Senna [dir: Asif Kapadia]

Best Animated Feature:
Rango [dir: Gore Verbinski]

Robert R. “Bobby” McCurdy Memorial Breakthrough Artist Award:
Jessica Chastain, Take Shelter/The Tree of Life/The Help/The Debt/Coriolanus/Texas Killing Fields

Best First Film:
Attack the Block [dir: Joe Cornish]

Austin Film Award:
Take Shelter [dir: Jeff Nichols]

Top 10 Films:
1. Hugo
2. Drive
3. Take Shelter
4. Midnight in Paris
5. Attack the Block
6. The Artist
7. Martha Marcy May Marlene
8. I Saw the Devil
9. 13 Assassins
10. Melancholia

2 Comments »

2 Responses to “Austin Film Critics Association 2011 Awards”

  1. Carlos says:
    December 28, 2011 at 7:09 pm

    Felicitaciones por las grandes películas que se estan realizando y a los Directores que siempre buscan lo mejor para el espectaador. Felíz Año Nuevo.

  2. Carlos says:
    December 28, 2011 at 7:16 pm

    Felicitaciones por las grandes películas que se estan realizando y a los Directores que siempre buscan lo mejor para el espectador. Felíz Año Nuevo.

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“I’m in Locarno, my movie is premiering for 1,000 people, which is nuts. A huge-ass screening, second day of the festival, 7:30pm in the sidebar competition. It’s comparable to Un Certain Regard or Director’s Fortnight. Every movie I saw in that section was fun, brilliant movies from around the world. The main competition was like Aza Jacobs and Mia Hansen-Løve, people who have been around. And I was like, “This is crazy. What am I doing inside the bloodstream of this establishment? I’m 27. I don’t belong here.” Every person I talked to there couldn’t believe what the movie cost, and then couldn’t believe when I told them what other American movies cost. We were the cheapest movie there by 65%. The next cheapest movie cost I think three times as much as we did. And they were just like, “You can’t make movies for what you’re telling us your movie cost.” And I told them, “Well, I can, I’m here, I’m in the same section as you are, so you are wrong. People think I’m lying when I tell them my budget. And also everyone likes it. I’m having a great time and people are being very responsive. Maurice Pialat’s widow was like, “I heard your movie’s good, I want a copy of it.” I’m like, “Well this is f**kin’ crazy.” Pedro Costa saw it there and really liked it and I’m like, What am I doing? I had gone in two months from screening at BAM for a lot of friends to Pedro Costa? This is the exact sentence: “Pedro Costa saw your movie. He’s a huge Jerry Lewis fan. He wants to talk to you about your movie and also Jerry Lewis.” And I thought, “I’m out of my element. I cannot have that conversation because that’s ridiculous.” Because his retrospective was happening at Anthology when I worked at Kim’s, and his Criterion box set came out when I was working at Kim’s. He can’t want to talk to me. That’s not possible. That’s not allowed. There is no world where that makes any sense!”  Or like when you wrote me to say that David Gordon Green wrote you to say, “I’m watching The Color Wheel and then I’m going to see Tree of Life.” There is no world where this is allowed! Again, somebody whose DVDs I was putting on the shelf, as, like, a hero. And it’s just like, “Oh, I’ll watch this movie.” There’s just a very fuzzy area in the middle there and it happened very quickly and I don’t understand why.  I still have a voice-mail from Sean [Price Williams, cinematographer]. I wish he was here to talk about it, but the voice-mail is a long pause and he’s just like, “I don’t want to tell you this, because it’s gonna make you so insufferable. I hate having to tell you this, but Leos Carax watched your movie and he really loves it, and he wants to meet you when he comes to New York.” I can’t live in a world where Leos Carax knows who I am, watches my movie, likes it, and thinks, “I wanna meet that guy.”
~ It’s Alex Ross Perry’s World

“I don’t know. It’s been a lot harder than I thought it was going to be to make the films I really dream of making. I was in Italy a few years ago scouting for this very beautiful film I wanted to make with Richard Linklater. We worked really hard on the script for a couple of years and couldn’t get the money together. It was an expensive idea. It’s heartbreaking when that happens over and over again and then the movies that do get made are ones that have lots of women being beaten up or zombies being killed. It’s all fine, it’s all okay, but it’s hard. I remember when River Phoenix died, he was ahead of me on this curve. He kind of realized how hard it was to make serious movies. People like Sidney Lumet figured out how to walk that line, but it’s hard. And it requires patience. It’s a life’s work and I wonder if I’m up to the task.”
~ Weary, Wary Ethan Hawke

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