The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, Antigone and Firecrackers compete for Rogers $100,000 Best Canadian Film Award
TORONTO – Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite took three top awards from the Toronto Film Critics Association, while Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story took two acting awards.
South Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s dark, class-based comedy about a poor family that scams a rich one, was awarded Best Picture, Best Director and Best Foreign Film.
The TFCA chose Adam Driver as Best Actor for playing a father fighting for custody in Marriage Story.
Lupita Nyong’o was named Best Actress for her performance in Jordan Peele’s horror film Us.
Laura Dern was named Best Supporting Actress for Marriage Story, while TFCA members chose Brad Pitt as Best Supporting Actor for Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman won in the Best Screenplay category.
Actress-turned-director Olivia Wilde’s teen coming-of-age movie Booksmart was awarded Best First Feature.
The awards were voted by TFCA members at a meeting on Sunday, December 8, 2019.
American Factory was given the Allan King Documentary Film Award.
Missing Link, from the Portland-based stop-motion animation house Laika, was named Best Animated Feature.
The membership has chosen the three finalists for the Rogers Best Canadian Film Award: The Body Remembers When the World Broken Open co-directed by Kathleen Hepburn and Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Antigone by Sophie Deraspe and Firecrackers by Jasmin Mozaffari.
The winner will be named at the 23rd TFCA awards gala, to be held at The Omni King Edward Hotel in Toronto on January 9, 2020. The honour carries a record-setting $100,000 cash prize, the richest film award in the country. The runners-up will each receive $5,000.
“The big win for Bong Joon-ho’s masterful Parasite, a South Korean comic thriller of family guile and guilt, attests to the vitality of global cinema even at a time of rapid change for film,” said TFCA President Peter Howell. “It was also gratifying to see how TFCA members saluted female moviemakers: our three nominees for Best Canadian Feature and our three nominees for Best First Feature were all directed by women.”
As previously announced, the 2019 recipient of the Technicolor Clyde Gilmour Award is Michèle Maheux, who has chosen Colombian-Canadian filmmaker Lina Rodriguez to be the recipient of $50,000 worth of services from Technicolor Creative Services, as part of the “pay it forward” protocol of the Gilmour prize.
Rodriguez’s first feature film, Señoritas, had its US premiere at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Her second, This Time Tomorrow, competed for the Golden Leopard at the Locarno International Film Festival.
The winner of the Stella Artois Jay Scott Prize for an emerging artist, will be announced at a later date, and will be presented with a $10,000 cheque at the gala.
The 2019 TFCA Awards Gala will be hosted by Cameron Bailey, Artistic Director and Co-Head of the Toronto International Film Festival.
The TFCA is extremely grateful to founding sponsor Rogers Communications for the Rogers Best Canadian Film Award, to returning sponsors Labatt’s for the Stella Artois Jay Scott Prize for an emerging artist, to Technicolor Creative Services for the Technicolor Clyde Gilmour Award, and to Cineplex Entertainment for the Cineplex cocktail reception. The TFCA thanks Air Canada as the official airline sponsor and RBC for the Emerging Critic Award. The TFCA also thanks champagne sponsor Perrier–Jouët, The Globe and Mail, Zoomer Magazine and TAXI Toronto, and welcomes new official hotel sponsor The Omni King Edward Hotel.