2024 Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA) Winners: ‘Anora’ Takes Best Pic, Marianne Jean-Baptiste Becomes First Black Actress with Lead Win
Sean Baker’s Anora took the Best Picture award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA) among its three wins today that also included one for Yura Borisov for his supporting performance as a thug with a soft spot the film’s titular character.
Now in their third year of non-gendered acting awards, with two winners for leading performance and two for supporting, Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Hard Truths) and Mikey Madison (Anora) shared the Best Lead Performance honor. Jean-Baptiste made LAFCA history by becoming the first Black actress to win Best Actress/Lead Performance from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association in their 49-year history.
Jean-Baptiste also earned the New York Film Critics Circle Best Actress award earlier this week, potentially closing in on the trifecta that also includes the National Society of Film Critics (NSFC). The last lead actress to win both NYFCC and LAFCA and fail to be Oscar-nominated was Sally Hawkins for 2008’s Happy Go Lucky (she also won NSFC that year), ironically also directed by Mike Leigh.
Demi Moore (The Substance) and Fernanda Torres (I’m Still Here) were the lead runners-up, making for an all-female lineup for the first time since the lead category creation.
Joining Borisov was A Real Pain‘s Kieran Culkin, fresh off his New York film critics and National Board of Review wins earlier this week. Clarence Maclin (Sing Sing) and Adam Pearson (A Different Man) were the runners-up.
Mohammad Rasoulof surprised with a Best Director win for The Seed of the Sacred Fig, putting him in a unique spot, Oscar-wise.: the last LAFCA Best Director winner to not receive a corresponding Oscar nomination was Debra Granik for 2018’s Leave No Trace. Prior to that (excluding the 2017 tie between Guillermo del Toro for The Shape of Water and Luca Guadagnino for Call Me By Your Name) was Paul Thomas Anderson for 2012’s The Master.
Rasoulof directed, co-wrote and produced The Seed of the Sacred Fig and was forced to flee Iran after facing an eight-year prison sentence. The director was secretly shuttled to Cannes this summer where the film played in competition and was awarded a Special Jury Prize by Greta Gerwig and her jury members. Watch Rasoulof talk to AwardsWatch about the challenges he faced while creating the film in total secrecy here.
“It was an exceptional reception, and I don’t think I will ever forget the way we were welcomed in Cannes,” he said. But the absence of his collaborators weighed heavily on him. “On one hand, I was delighted to be there; on the other hand, I was so upset because all my collaborators should have been there with me,” he reflected. “I was laughing in one eye and crying in another.”
The Latvian film Flow also continued a dominant reign in the animated feature critics categories with a win today after securing awards from NBR, NYFCC and the European Film Academy last night. The film is Latvia’s International Feature Film Oscar submission. The Palestinian doc No Other Land also earned another win today for Documentary Feature after winning NYFCC, EFA and at the Independent Documentary Association awards.
John Carpenter will be the recipient of the Career Achievement prize, which he’ll receive at the group’s in person ceremony.
Best Picture: Anora
Runner-up: The Brutalist
Director: Mohammad Rasoulof —The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Runner-up: Sean Baker — Anora
Best Lead Performance: Marianne Jean-Baptiste — Hard Truths; Mikey Madison — Anora
Runners-up: Demi Moore — The Substance and Fernanda Torres — I’m Still Here
Best Supporting Performance: Yura Borisov — Anora; Kieran Culkin, —A Real Pain
Runners-up: Clarence Maclin — Sing Sing and Adam Pearson — A Different Man
Screenplay: Jesse Eisenberg — A Real Pain
Runner up: Sean Baker — Anora
Animation: Flow
Runner-up: Chicken for Linda
Music Score: Challengers — Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
Runner-up: Evil Does Not Exist — Eiko Ishibashi
Cinematography: Nickel Boys — Jomo Fray
Runner-up: The Brutalist — Lol Crawley
Editing: (TIE) Nickel Boys — Nicholas Monsour; September 5 — Hansjörg Weißbrich
Runner-up: None
Production Design: The Brutalist — Judy Becker
Runner-up: Blitz — Adam Stockhausen
Best Film Not in the English Language: All We Imagine as Light
Runner-up: The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Documentary/Non-Fiction Film: No Other Land
Runner-up: Dahomey
New Generation Award: Vera Drew — The People’s Joker
Douglas Edwards Experimental Film Prize: The Human Surge 3 by Eduardo Williams
Career Achievement Award: John Carpenter
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
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