Critics groups share picks for 2016’s best
La La Land, Manchester by the Sea earn high praise from TFCA, BFCA
The Toronto Film Critics Association (TFCA) has named Moonlight the best picture of 2016, and also awarded Mahershala Ali as best supporting actor for his role in the film.
Writer and director Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea also picked up two prizes, for best screenplay and best supporting actress, for Michelle Williams. The other multiple winner was the German comedy Toni Erdmann. It was named best foreign-language film of 2016; writer and director Maren Ade took the prize for best director; and its star, Sandra Hüller, was named best actress. The film will be released in Canada on Jan. 27.
Rounding out the acting prizes, Adam Driver was named best actor for his role as a bus driver/poet in Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson, which opens in Canada on Jan. 13.
The TFCA chose Zootopia as the best animated film and picked Cameraperson, which opens in Toronto on Dec. 16 and later across Canada, as the best documentary of the year.
Still to be decided is the winner of the $100,000 Rogers Best Canadian Film prize, who will be named at the group’s gala dinner in Toronto on Jan. 10. The finalists for the prize are: Hugh Gibson for The Stairs, a documentary about drug users in Toronto’s Regent Park neighbourhood; Matt Johnson for his film Operation Avalanche, a fake documentary about a faked moon landing; and Kazik Radwanski for How Heavy This Hammer, a drama about a man addicted to online gaming.
Meanwhile, the Broadcast Film Critics Association (BFCA) has moved its awards from mid-January to mid-December, in part to get ahead of an increasingly crowded awards season. (Full disclosure: This writer is a member of both critics groups.)
The Golden Globe nominations this year were announced Monday, the day after the televised BFCA awards.
The group named La La Land the best film of 2016. The musical, which stars Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, opens in Canada on Christmas Day. Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea) and Natalie Portman (Jackie) won the best acting prizes. In the supporting categories, the group chose Moonlight’s Mahershala Ali, and Viola Davis from Fences.