‘Happening,’ ‘Drive My Car,’ and ‘Benediction’ top 19th International Cinephile Society (ICS) winners
Women ruled at this year’s International Cinephile Society (ICS) awards, winning Picture, Director, Animated Film, Documentary, Debut Feature, Breakthrough Performance and Cinematography across five different films.
Venice Golden Lion winner Happening, Audrey Diwan’s intimate and still timely 1960s abortion drama, took home Best Picture, while Anamaria Vartolomei’s desperate portrayal of a young woman seeking to end her unwanted pregnancy won the prize for Best Breakthrough Performance. Legendary auteur Jane Campion claimed the Best Director prize for the consummate artistry on display in every frame of her Western family drama The Power of the Dog, continuing her awards-season sweep.
Runner-up for top film was Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s exquisitely mysterious Drive My Car. Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe won the Adapted Screenplay award for this mesmerizing road drama (based on a Haruki Murakami short story) about guilt and grief and moving on. The other Hamaguchi movie from 2021, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, claimed the Best Ensemble prize.
Benediction took home three awards: Jack Lowden as Best Actor for passionately conveying the complex nature of poet Siegfried Sassoon in his younger years; Terence Davies for his sensitive, literate Original Screenplay; and cinematographer Nicola Daley for her poetic lensing.
Best Actress went to In Front of Your Face’s Lee Hye-yeong for her wry, startling turn as a middle-aged actress who faces down death by staying present in each moment, however awkward or absurd it may be. Anders Danielsen Lie took Supporting Actor for his perceptive work as a politically incorrect cartoonist, with more emotional depth than one would expect, in the romantic dramedy The Worst Person in the World and Ruth Negga in Passing won Supporting Actress honors for her sad, brittle depiction of the price we pay in choosing not to be ourselves.
With Memoria, Sound Design winners Javier Umpierrez and Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr created a uniquely brilliant soundscape crucial to the entire experience of the film. For The Crossing, artist Florence Miailhe made the first feature-length animation film painted on glass, winning the Animated Film award.
The Documentary award went to Mr. Bachmann and His Class, Maria Speth’s inspiring look at an unorthodox teacher’s close bond with his students in a multicultural primary school. And on the flip side, for Debut Feature the group chose Laura Wandel’s Playground, an immersive, jolting view of schoolyard bullying as seen through a child’s eyes.
The full list of ICS winners, runners-up and nominees appears below.
PICTURE
01. Happening
02. Drive My Car
03. Benediction
04. What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?
05. The Power of the Dog
06. Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle
07. Annette
08. Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn
09. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
10. The Souvenir Part II
11. Petite Maman
12. Memoria
13. In Front of Your Face
14. Licorice Pizza
15. Who’s Stopping Us
16. Red Rocket
17. Titane
18. Spencer
19. West Side Story
20. Haruhara-san’s Recorder
DIRECTOR
Winner: Jane Campion – The Power of the Dog
RU: Audrey Diwan – Happening
• Terence Davies – Benediction
• Ryûsuke Hamaguchi – Drive My Car
• Arthur Harari – Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle
• Apichatpong Weerasethakul – Memoria
ACTOR
Winner: Jack Lowden – Benediction
RU: Franz Rogowski – Great Freedom
• Benedict Cumberbatch – The Power of the Dog
• Adam Driver – Annette
• Hidetoshi Nishijima – Drive My Car
• Simon Rex – Red Rocket
ACTRESS
Winner: Lee Hye-yeong – In Front of Your Face
RU: Anamaria Vartolomei – Happening
• Penélope Cruz – Parallel Mothers
• Isabelle Fuhrman – The Novice
• Léa Seydoux – France
• Kristen Stewart – Spencer
SUPPORTING ACTOR
Winner: Anders Danielsen Lie – The Worst Person in the World
RU: Vincent Lindon – Titane
• Yuriy Borisov – Compartment No. 6
• Xavier Dolan – Lost Illusions
• Jeremy Irvine – Benediction
• Kodi Smit-McPhee – The Power of the Dog
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Winner: Ruth Negga – Passing
RU: Anna Mouglalis – Happening
• Ariana DeBose – West Side Story
• Tôko Miura – Drive My Car
• Park Yu-rim – Drive My Car
• Fusako Urabe – Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
ENSEMBLE
Winner: Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
RU: Drive My Car
• Benediction
• Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle
• The Power of the Dog
• Who’s Stopping Us
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Winner: Benediction – Terence Davies
RU: Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn – Radu Jude
• Annette – Ron Mael, Russell Mael
• Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle – Arthur Harari, Vincent Poymiro
• Petite Maman – Céline Sciamma
• Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy – Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Winner: Drive My Car – Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Takamasa Oe
RU: Happening – Marcia Romano, Audrey Diwan
• Fabian: Going to the Dogs – Dominik Graf, Constantin Lieb
• I Want to Talk About Duras – Claire Simon
• Passing – Rebecca Hall
• The Power of the Dog – Jane Campion
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Winner: Benediction – Nicola Daley
RU: Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle – Tom Harari
• The Green Knight – Andrew Droz Palermo
• The Power of the Dog – Ari Wegner
• Spencer – Claire Mathon
• The Tragedy of Macbeth – Bruno Delbonnel
EDITING
Winner: What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? – Aleksandre Koberidze
RU: Benediction – Alex Mackie
• Annette – Nelly Quettier
• Happening – Géraldine Mangenot
• Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle – Laurent Sénéchal
• The Tsugua Diaries – Pedro Filipe Marques
PRODUCTION DESIGN
Winner: The Souvenir Part II – Stéphane Collonge, Byron Broadbent, Polly Davenport
RU: After Blue – Thomas Salabert
• Annette – Florian Sanson, Marion Michel
• Dune – Patrice Vermette, Tom Brown, Richard Roberts, Zsuzsanna Sipos
• Fabian: Going to the Dogs – Claus-Jürgen Pfeiffer, Nadja Götze
• The French Dispatch – Adam Stockhausen, Stéphane Cressend, Rena DeAngelo
SCORE
Winner: Annette – Ron Mael, Russell Mael (aka Sparks)
RU: What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? – Giorgi Koberidze
• Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle – Sebastiano De Gennaro, Enrico Gabrielli, Olivier Marguerit, Andrea Poggio, Gak Sato
• Parallel Mothers – Alberto Iglesias
• The Power of the Dog – Jonny Greenwood
• Spencer – Jonny Greenwood
SOUND DESIGN
Winner: Memoria – Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr, Raúl Locatelli, Javier Umpierrez
RU: Out of Sync – Oriol Tarragó, Marc Bech
• Annette – Erwan Kerzanet
• A Cop Movie – Javier Umpierrez
• Dune – Phil Barrie, Theo Green, Mark A. Mangini, Dave Whitehead
• Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle – Ivan Dumas, Andreas Hildebrandt
ANIMATED FILM
Winner: The Crossing – Florence Miailhe
RU: The Summit of the Gods – Patrick Imbert
• Cryptozoo – Dash Shaw
• Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time – Hideaki Anno, Kazuya Tsurumaki, Mahiro Maeda
• Flee – Jonas Poher Rasmussen
• Luca – Enrico Casarosa
DOCUMENTARY
Winner: Mr. Bachmann and His Class – Maria Speth
RU: Returning to Reims – Jean-Gabriel Périot
• Flee – Jonas Poher Rasmussen
• A River Runs, Turns, Erases, Replaces – Shengze Zhu
• Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) – Questlove
• Three Minutes – A Lengthening – Bianca Stigter
DEBUT FEATURE
Winner: Playground – Laura Wandel
RU: Passing – Rebecca Hall
• Anatomia – Ola Jankowska
• El Planeta – Amalia Ulman
• The Lost Daughter – Maggie Gyllenhaal
• The Tale of King Crab – Matteo Zoppis, Alessio Rigo de Righi
BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE
Winner: Anamaria Vartolomei – Happening
RU: Alana Haim – Licorice Pizza
RU: Lucie Zhang – Paris, 13th District
• Agathe Rousselle – Titane
• Filippo Scotti – The Hand of God
• Maya Vanderbeque – Playground
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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