SF Film Critics 2007 Award Winners

SAN FRANCISCO FILM CRITICS CIRCLE announces its 2007 Awards for Achievement in Film San Francisco, CA, December 10, 2007 – The San Francisco Film Critics Circle has named “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” as the Best Picture of 2007. Andrew Dominik’s Western, based on the Ron Hansen novel, details the complex psychology of Robert Ford and his relationship to the infamous outlaw Jesse James. For his performance as Ford, Casey Affleck was named Best Supporting Actor. Veteran filmmaking team Joel & Ethan Coen took Best Director honors for helming “No Country for Old Men,” an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s existential crime drama. The San Francisco Film Critics Circle (SFFCC), which includes twenty-four Bay Area film critics, honored George Clooney as Best Actor for the titular role of a troubled lawyer in “Michael Clayton.” Julie Christie won Best Actress for playing Fiona Anderson, who bravely faces Alzheimer’s disease in “Away from Her.” In addition to Affleck’s Best Supporting Actor nod, Amy Ryan secured Best Supporting Actress for playing Helene McCready, mother to a missing girl in “Gone Baby Gone.” Best Original Screenplay honors went to Tamara Jenkins’ “The Savages,” a seriocomic look at two siblings dealing with the physical and mental breakdown of their father, while Best Adapted Screenplay was awarded to Sarah Polley for turning Alice Munro’s short story “The Bear Came Over the Mountain” into the film “Away from Her.” The San Francisco critics picked “No End in Sight” as the year’s Best Documentary; Charles Ferguson’s film explicates America’s controversial entry into and occupation of Iraq. Best Foreign Language Film went to Julian Schnabel’s “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” (“Le scaphandre et le papillon”), a French-language adaptation of Jean-Dominique Bauby’s autobiographical book about life trapped inside a paralyzed body. The SFFCC issued a Special Citation to recognize the under-looked independent film “Colma: The Musical,” a homegrown song-and-dance extravaganza about the paradoxical drudgery and surreality of life in a city where the dead outnumber the living one thousand to one. Lastly, the group presented its Marlon Riggs Award, honoring a Bay Area filmmaker or individual who represents courage and innovation in the world of cinema, to filmmaker Lynn Hershman-Leeson. Hershman-Leeson’s films include “Conceiving Ada,” “Teknolust,” and this year’s “Strange Culture,” the true story of a Bay Area artist’s Kafkaesque experience as a suspected terrorist in the era of the Patriot Act. # # # The San Francisco Film Critics Circle (SFFCC), founded in 2002, is comprised of film critics from Bay Area publications. Its members include Jeff Anderson (Combustible Celluloid), Jeanne Aufmuth (Palo Alto Weekly), Barry Caine (Bay Area News Group), Peter Canavese (GrouchoReviews), Andrea Chase (Killer Movie Reviews), Cheryl Eddy (SF Bay Guardian), Michael Fox (SF360), Susan Gerhard (SF360), Pam Grady (FilmStew), Peter Hartlaub (San Francisco Chronicle), Dennis Harvey (Variety), Johnny Ray Huston (SF Bay Guardian), Mick LaSalle (San Francisco Chronicle), Carla Meyer (Sacramento Bee), Bruce Newman (San Jose Mercury News), Mary Pols (Contra Costa Times), James Rocchi (CBS-5), Tim Sika (Celluloid Dreams), Ruthe Stein (San Francisco Chronicle), Jan Wahl (KRON-TV), Jason Walsh (Pacific Sun), Kelly Vance (East Bay Express), and Richard Von Busack (San Jose Metro).