The Women Film Critics Circle Awards 2010

A very interesting critics awards list has been released by the Women Film Critics Circle. Their 2010 awards are very different from every other list so far, with The Social Network nowhere to be seen. The under-appreciated Mother and Child took the prize for Best Movie About Women and also won Best Ensemble. Winter's Bone won Best Movie By A Woman, Best Young Actress (Jennifer Lawrence) and the Adrienne Shelly Award for "film that most passionately opposes violence against women."


The Kids Are All Right was also a triple winner, taking Best Woman Storyteller (Lisa Cholodenko) and both Best Actress and Best Comedic Actress for Annette Bening (Bening also starred in Mother and Child). So too was Another Year, winning Best Screen Couple and tying for Best Male Images and Best Equality of the Sexes.

They also handed out two "worst" prizes, to Jackass 3D and - surprisingly - to Black Swan. I would have thought that the shallow and insignificant women's roles in The Social Network, for instance, would have been a more suitable candidate for rebuke than anything in Black Swan. It may be true that Black Swan portrays women unflatteringly but that's because it's a dark thriller, and it nonetheless provided a large number of interesting roles for women whereas others did not.

Helen Mirren received a Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Courage in Acting award for her role as "Prospera" in The Tempest.

Created in 2004, the Women Film Critics Circle is an association of fifty-five women film critics and scholars from around the country and internationally, who are involved in print, radio, online and TV broadcast media. The members of the WFCC believe that women's perspectives and voices in film criticism need to be recognized fully.
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Complete list of winners for the Women Film Critics Circle Awards 2010

BEST MOVIE ABOUT WOMEN
Mother And Child

BEST MOVIE BY A WOMAN
Winter's Bone

BEST WOMAN STORYTELLER [Screenwriting Award]
The Kids Are All Right: Lisa Cholodenko

BEST ACTRESS
Annette Bening/The Kids Are All Right

BEST ACTOR
Colin Firth/The King's Speech

BEST YOUNG ACTRESS
Jennifer Lawrence/Winter's Bone

BEST COMEDIC ACTRESS
Annette Bening/The Kids Are All Right

BEST FOREIGN FILM BY OR ABOUT WOMEN: *TIE*
Mother
Women Without Men

BEST FEMALE IMAGES IN A MOVIE
Conviction

WORST FEMALE IMAGES IN A MOVIE
Black Swan

BEST MALE IMAGES IN A MOVIE: *TIE*
Another Year
The King's Speech

WORST MALE IMAGES IN A MOVIE
Jackass 3D

BEST THEATRICALLY UNRELEASED MOVIE BY OR ABOUT WOMEN [Includes films released on DVD or TV, or screened at film festivals, in recognition of the limited opportunities available for films by and about women on screen]
Temple Grandin

BEST EQUALITY OF THE SEXES: *TIE
Another Year
Fair Game

BEST ANIMATED FEMALES
Despicable Me

BEST FAMILY FILM
Toy Story 3

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Helen Mirren

ACTING AND ACTIVISM
Lena Horne [posthumous]: [6/30/17- 5/9/10] As an anti-racist activist, she refused to appear before racially segregated US Army audiences in WW2 Italy-since the army was officially segregated, the policy was to have one show solely for white troops and another show solely for black troops. Horne insisted on performing for mixed audiences, and since the US Army refused to allow integrated audiences, she wound up putting on a show for a mixed audience of black US soldiers and white German POWs. Horne was also branded a 'communist sympathizer' by many right-wing conservatives because of her association with Paul Robeson and her progressive political beliefs, which led her to be blacklisted in the 1950s. Lena Horne passed away on Mothers Day at the age of 92.

*ADRIENNE SHELLY AWARD: For a film that most passionately opposes violence against women:
Winter's Bone

*JOSEPHINE BAKER AWARD: For best expressing the woman of color experience in America
For Colored Girls

*KAREN MORLEY AWARD: For best exemplifying a woman's place in history or society, and a courageous search for identity
Fair Game

COURAGE IN ACTING [Taking on unconventional roles that radically redefine the images of women on screen]
Helen Mirren/The Tempest

THE INVISIBLE WOMAN AWARD [Performance by a woman whose exceptional impact on the film dramatically, socially or historically, has been ignored]
*TIE*
Julie Andrews/Despicable Me [voice of the moon]
Q'Orianka Kilcher/Princess Kaiulani

BEST DOCUMENTARY BY A WOMAN
A Film Unfinished

WOMEN'S WORK: BEST ENSEMBLE
Mother And Child

BEST SCREEN COUPLE
Another Year: Jim Broadbent/Ruth Sheen as Tom and Gerri