As proud members of this important organization, we are delighted to share with you the Women Film Critics Circle winners for 2021. Tune in to our podcast episode next Saturday for reviews from many of these winners and nominees!
(Sr Rose: I have been a member of the WFCC for about ten years and have met beautiful women critics through our e-list and sometimes at film festivals. Membership also gives me access to great films. . We need more female film and television critics. Think about it … Here is a link to the WFCC Facebook page).
BEST FILM ABOUT WOMEN
WINNER: Pass
YEAR: The lost girl
Being the Ricardos
CODA
BEST FILM BY A WOMAN
WINNER: Jane Campion – Power of the Dog
FINALIST: Sian Heder – CODA
Nora Fingscheidt – The Unforgivable
Rebecca Hall – Overtaking
BEST WOMEN’S STORYTELLER (Script Award)
WINNER: Jane Champion – Power of the Dog
RUNNER-UP: Rebecca Hall – Pass
Charlene Favier, Antoine Lacomblez and Marie Talon – Slalom
Sian Heder – CODA
BEST ACTRESS
WINNER: Kristen Stewart – Spencer
RUNNER-UP: Nicole Kidman – Being the Ricardos
Sandra Bullock – The Unforgivable
Virginie Efira – Benedetta
BEST ACTOR
WINNER: Will Smith – King Richard
RUNNER-UP: Benedict Cumberbatch – The Power of the Dog
Andrew Garfield – tick, tick… BOOM!
Nicolas Cage – Pig
BEST FOREIGN FILM BY OR ABOUT WOMEN
WINNER: Titanium
RUNNER-UP: Drive my car
Benedetta
I am your man
BEST DOCUMENTARY BY OR ABOUT WOMEN
WINNER: Rita Moreno: Just a girl who decided to go
FINAL: Presentation of Selma Blair
Gunda
lady buds
BETTER GENDER EQUALITY
WINNER: King Richard
RUNNER-UP (TIE): Being the Ricardos
RUNNER-UP (TIE): The more they fall
Milkshakes with powder
BEST ANIMATED WOMAN
WINNER: Mirabel – Encanto
RUNNER-UP: Raya – Raya and the Last Dragon
Abuela Alma – Encanto
Gabi – Vivo
BEST SCREEN TORQUE
WINNER: Ruth Negga and Tessa Thompson – Passes
RUNNER-UP (TIE): Marlee Matlin and Troy Kotsur – CODA
RUNNER-UP (TIE): Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem – Being the Ricardos
Anthony Ramos and Melissa Barrera – In the Heights
* ADRIENNE SHELLY AWARD – For a film that most passionately opposes violence against women
* ADRIENNE SHELLY AWARD: Adrienne Shelly was a promising actress and director who was brutally strangled in her apartment in 2006 at the age of forty by a construction worker in the building, after complaining about the noise. Her killer tried to cover up her crime by hanging her from a shower holder in her bathroom, to make it look like suicide. He later confessed that he was having a “bad day”. Shelly, who left a baby girl, had just finished her movie Waitress, in which she also starred, and which was honored at Sundance after her death.
WINNER: Last night in Soho
FINALIST: Adrienne
*JOSEPHINE BAKER PRIZE – To better express the experience of the woman of color in America
* JOSEPHINE BAKER AWARD: Daughter of a laundress and a musician, Baker overcame her black birth, female and poor, and marriage at the age of fifteen, to become a legendary artist of international renown, performing in films Princess Tam Tam, Moulin Rouge and Zou Zou. She also survived race riots in East St. Louis, Illinois, and later moved to France to escape American racism. After heroically participating in the underground French Resistance during World War II, Baker returned to the United States where she campaigned for racial equality. Her activism led to attacks on her by journalist Walter Winchell who denounced her as a communist, leading her to wage a battle against him. Baker was instrumental in ending segregation in many theaters and clubs, where she refused to perform unless mainstreaming was implemented.
WINNER: Pass
YEAR: Respect
bruised
Test pattern
* KAREN MORLEY PRIZE – To better illustrate the place of a woman in history or society, and a courageous search for identity
* KAREN MORLEY AWARD: Karen Morley was a promising Hollywood star in the 1930s, in films such as Mata Hari and Our Daily Bread. She was blacklisted from Hollywood for her leftist political beliefs and for refusing to testify against other actors, while Robert Taylor and Sterling Hayden were informants against her. And also for having dared to have a child and become a mother, unacceptable to female stars at the time. Morley maintained her militant political activism for the rest of her life, running as lieutenant governor on the US Labor Party ticket in 1954. She died in 2003, unrepentant to the end, at the age of 93 .
WINNER: Pass
RUNNER-UP: Being the Ricardos
Benedetta
Spencer
ACTOR AND ACTIVISM AWARD
Dolly parton
LIFE SUCCESS AWARD
Betty Blanche
SPECIAL PRIZE OF THE JURY PAULINE KAEL 2021
UNIQUE, PROVOCATIVE AND OPINIONED WITH ELEGANCE….
BEST WOMEN’S ACTION HERO
Sandra Bullock, The Unforgivable
Sandra Oh, the president
COURAGE IN CINEMA
Julia Ducournau, Titanium Sian Heder, CODA
COURAGE TO ACT [Taking on unconventional roles that radically redefine the images of women on screen]
Halle Berry, bruised
Sandra Bullock, The Unforgivable
WOMEN’S LABOR: BEST OVERALL CAST
Kathryn Hunter as The Three Witches, The Tragedy of Macbeth
king richard
THE PRIZE OF THE INVISIBLE WOMAN [Supporting performance by a woman whose exceptional impact on the film dramatically, socially or historically, has been ignored]
Danielle Deadwyler as Cathay Williams, The More They Fall
Rae Dawn Chong, the sleeping negro
WOMEN SAVING AWARD
A Quiet Place, Part II
Bawl
BEST KEPT SECRET – Neglected difficult gems
Mama Weed, director Jean-Paul Salomé
Small Time, Director Niav Conty
EXCEPTIONAL SERIES [Television or Streaming]
Lovecraft Country
The Handmaid’s Tale
MOMMIE DEAREST – WORST SCREEN MOM OF THE YEAR
Olivia Colman, the lost girl
