International Cinephile Society (ICS) Awards: ‘Close Your Eyes’ Takes Best Picture and Director; ‘All of Us Strangers’ Wins Actor, Supporting Actor, Ensemble, Adapted Screenplay

Victor Erice’s Close Your Eyes has been named the best film of 2023 by the International Cinephile Society (ICS) at their 21st annual awards, with Erice also picking up Best Director.

The film begins with a film-within-a-film, interrupted by the sudden disappearance of its lead actor – causing major impacts on his young daughter and his director (Manolo Solo), who never manages to complete another film. Interwoven themes of presence and absence, time and memory, movie magic versus the wear and tear of daily life, resonate like plucked guitar strings on a quiet beach. This year Ana Torrent pulled off an unprecedented feat: runner-up in supporting actress for Close Your Eyes and winner for her equally memorable role as an adoptive mother in Foremost by Night. That film, exploring the drama and heartbreak of Spain’s ‘stolen children,’ also earned our debut picture award for director Víctor Iriarte.

Close Your Eyes led the nominations alongside Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers with 10 apiece. Strangers ended up the biggest winner of the day with four: Lead Actor Andrew Scott as a gay man finally coming to terms with his painful repression; Supporting Actor Jamie Bell as the ghostly, apologetic dad who failed to save him from bullying; the film’s entire otherworldly Ensemble, including strong turns from Claire Foy and Paul Mescal; and writer-director Andrew Haigh for his lovingly crafted Adapted Screenplay based on a novel by Taichi Yamada.

Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall came in with 8 mentions and earned three wins: Best Actress for Sandra Hüller, Best Original Screenplay for Justine Triet and Arthur Harari and Best Film Editing for Laurent Sénéchal. Triet was also a runner-up in Best Director, in a tie with Radu Jude for Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World.

A trio of films earned two awards today: Samsara for Best Cinematography and Best Sound Design, The Boy and the Heron for Best Animated Film and Best Score, and Foremost the Night for the aforementioned wins for Best Supporting Actress and Debut Film.

Here is the complete list of winners of the 21st International Cinephile Society awards.

BEST PICTURE

• 1. Close Your Eyes
• 2. All of Us Strangers
• 3. Anatomy of a Fall
• 4. Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World
• 5. Foremost by Night
• 6. Tótem
• 7. Samsara
• 8. The Delinquents
• 9. The Human Surge 3
• 10. La Chimera
• 11. The Zone of Interest
• 12. Fallen Leaves
• 13. May December
• 14. Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell
• 15. The Boy and the Heron
• 16. Here
• 17. Poor Things
• 18. Killers of the Flower Moon
• 19. Our Body
• 20. Society of the Snow

BEST DIRECTOR
• Lila Avilés – Tótem
• Victor Erice – Close Your Eyes – WINNER
• Jonathan Glazer – The Zone of Interest
• Andrew Haigh – All of Us Strangers
• Radu Jude – Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World – Runner-up
• Justine Triet – Anatomy of a Fall – Runner-up

LEAD ACTOR
• Paul Giamatti – The Holdovers
• Karim Leklou – Sons of Ramses
• Josh O’Connor – La Chimera
• Andrew Scott – All of Us Strangers – WINNER
• Manolo Solo – Close Your Eyes – Runner-up
• Koji Yakusho – Perfect Days

LEAD ACTRESS
• Lily Gladstone – Killers of the Flower Moon
• Sandra Hüller – Anatomy of a Fall – WINNER
• Ilinca Manolache – Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World
• Alma Pöysti – Fallen Leaves
• Emma Stone – Poor Things
• Teyana Taylor – A Thousand and One – Runner-up

SUPPORTING ACTOR
• Jamie Bell – All of Us Strangers – WINNER
• José Coronado – Close Your Eyes – Runner-up
• Mateo Garcia – Tótem
• Milo Machado Graner – Anatomy of a Fall
• Charles Melton – May December
• Ben Whishaw – Passages

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
• Claire Foy – All of Us Strangers
• Julianne Moore – May December
• Da’Vine Joy Randolph – The Holdovers
• Catalina Saavedra – Rotting in the Sun
• Ana Torrent – Close Your Eyes – Runner-up
• Ana Torrent – Foremost by Night – WINNER

ENSEMBLE
• All of Us Strangers – WINNER
• Anatomy of a Fall
• Asteroid City
• Close Your Eyes
• Society of the Snow
• Tótem – Runner-up

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
• Afire – Christian Petzold
• Anatomy of a Fall – Justine Triet, Arthur Harari – WINNER
• Close Your Eyes – Victor Erice, Michel Gaztambide
• Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World – Radu Jude – Runner-up
• May December – Samy Burch, Alex Mechanik
• Monster – Yuji Sakamoto
• Tótem – Lila Avilés

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
• All of Us Strangers – Andrew Haigh – WINNER
• The Beast in the Jungle – Patric Chiha, Jihane Chouaib, Axelle Ropert
• Killers of the Flower Moon – Eric Roth, Martin Scorsese
• Poor Things – Tony McNamara
• Society of the Snow – J.A. Bayona, Jaime Marques, Bernat Vilaplana, Nicolás Casariego
• The Zone of Interest – Jonathan Glazer – Runner-up

CINEMATOGRAPHY
• All of Us Strangers – Jamie Ramsay
• Close Your Eyes – Valentín Álvarez
• Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell – Dinh Duy Hung – runner-up
• La Chimera – Hélène Louvart
• Samsara – Mauro Herce, Jessica Sarah Rinland – WINNER
• The Zone of Interest – Lukasz Zal

EDITING
• All of Us Strangers – Jonathan Alberts
• Anatomy of a Fall – Laurent Sénéchal – WINNER
• Close Your Eyes – Ascen Marchena
• Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World – Catalin Cristutiu – Runner-up
• Oppenheimer – Jennifer Lame
• Society of the Snow – Andrés Gil, Jaume Martí

PRODUCTION DESIGN
• Asteroid City – Adam Stockhausen, Kris Moran – Runner-up
• Barbie – Sarah Greenwood, Katie Spencer
• Close Your Eyes – Curru Garabal
• Foremost by Night – Katixa Silva, Izaskun Urkijo
• Killers of the Flower Moon – Jack Fisk, Adam Willis
• Poor Things – Shona Heath, James Price, Zsuzsa Mihalek – WINNER

SCORE
• The Boy and the Heron – Joe Hisaishi – WINNER
• Disco Boy – Vitalic
• Killers of the Flower Moon – Robbie Robertson
• Monster – Ryuichi Sakamoto
• A Thousand and One – Gary Gunn – Runner-up
• The Zone of Interest – Mica Levi

SOUND DESIGN
• All of Us Strangers – Joakim Sundström
• The Boy and the Heron – Koji Kasamatsu
• Maestro – Richard King, Steve Morrow, Tom Ozanich, Jason Ruder, Dean Zupancic
• Oppenheimer – Richard King, Kevin O’Connell, Gary A. Rizzo, Willie Burton
• Samsara – Xabier Erkizia, Luca Rulio – WINNER
• The Zone of Interest – Johnnie Burn, Tarn Willers – Runner-up

ANIMATED FILM
• The Boy and the Heron – Hayao Miyazaki – WINNER
• Chicken for Linda! – Sébastien Laudenbach, Chiara Malta
• Mars Express – Jérémie Périn
• Robot Dreams – Pablo Berger – Runner-up
• Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse – Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson
• Suzume – Makoto Shinkai

DOCUMENTARY
• Bye Bye Tiberias – Lina Soualem
• The Mother of All Lies – Asmae El Moudir – WINNER
• Orlando, My Political Biography – Paul B. Preciado
• Our Body – Claire Simon – Runner-up
• Pictures of Ghosts – Kleber Mendonça Filho
• Youth (Spring) – Wang Bing

DEBUT FILM
• 20,000 Species of Bees – Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren
• Chien de la casse – Jean-Baptiste Durand
• Foremost by Night – Víctor Iriarte – WINNER
• Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell – Pham Thien An – Runner-up
• Past Lives – Celine Song
• Patagonia – Simone Bozzelli

BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE
• Milo Machado Graner – Anatomy of a Fall – Runner-up
• Ilinca Manolache – Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World – WINNER
• Charles Melton – May December
• Sofía Otero – 20,000 Species of Bees
• Raphaël Quenard – Chien de la casse
• Naima Senties – Tótem
• Dominic Sessa – The Holdovers

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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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