Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) moves its awards ceremony to February 28

The Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) announced today that it has moved of its planned January 8 awards ceremony, which was scheduled to take place at Avalon Hollywood, to February 28 (the day after the SAG Awards) amidst the rise of COVID cases in Los Angeles and the surge of the Omicron variant.

“The health and safety of our members, nominees, special award recipients, and guests will always be our top priority,” said HCA co-founders Ashley & Scott Menzel, “which is why we have decided to postpone our ceremony to a later date.”

“These past two weeks feel like déjà vu. We were hoping for the best, but the number of cases only continues to increase each and every day,” added Scott Menzel. “Given the number of people traveling for the holiday season, we felt that the postponement of the HCA Film Awards was inevitable. Out of an abundance of caution, we are moving the awards to the end of February with the hope of having an in-person ceremony, but only if the current situation improves.”

“We would like to thank all of the studios and personal publicists for their ongoing support as we continue to navigate through this time of uncertainty,” HCA President Nestor Bentancor said in closing.

No word at this time on if the ceremony would be virtual or in-person or possibly hybrid.

Dennis Villenueve’s Dune topped this year’s HCA nominations. Belfast and CODA and Spencer followed closely with 8 apiece with King Richard and tick, tick…BOOM! rounding out the top noms with seven each.

The group’s honorary award recipients will be Natalie Morales (Filmmaker on the Rise Award), Simu Liu (Game Changer Award), Jude Hill (Newcomer Award), the cast of CODA (Spotlight Award) and Greig Fraser (Artisans Achievement Award).

For the full nomination list of the 5th Hollywood Critics Association film awards visit here and for the updated 2021/2022 Film Awards calendar click here.

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

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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