The Women Film Critics Circle announced the nominations for the best movies of 2017 by and about women, and outstanding achievements by women, who get to be rarely honored historically, in the industry.  The WFCC is comprised of women film critics and scholars who came together in 2004 to form the first women critics’ organization in the United States, in the belief that women’s perspectives and voices in film criticism need to be recognized fully.  A presentation of the WFCC, Critical Women On Film is online at: Criticalwomen.blogspot.com

THE WOMEN FILM CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDS NOMINATIONS 2017

BEST MOVIE ABOUT WOMEN
A Quiet Passion
Lady Bird
Sophie And The Rising Sun
The Florida Project

BEST MOVIE BY A WOMAN
Detroit
First They Killed My Father
Lady Bird
Mudbound

BEST WOMAN STORYTELLER [Screenwriting Award]
Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird
Maggie Greenwald: Sophie And The Rising Sun
Dee Reese, Mudbound
Angela Workman, The Zookeeper’s Wife

BEST ACTRESS
Sally Hawkins, Maudie
Sally Hawkins, The Shape Of Water
Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Cynthia Nixon, A Quiet Passion
___________________ Write In Vote
BEST ACTOR
Timothée Chalamet, Call Me By Your Name
Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out
Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour
Denzel Washington, Roman J. Israel, Esq.
BEST YOUNG ACTRESS (Under 21)
Seo-Hyun Ahn, Okja
Mckenna Grace, Gifted
Brooklynn Prince, The Florida Project
Millicent Simmonds, Wonderstruck
BEST COMEDIC ACTRESS
Tiffany Haddish, Girls Trip
Allison Janney: I, Tonya
Margo Robbie: I, Tonya
Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird
BEST FOREIGN FILM BY OR ABOUT WOMEN
A Fantastic Woman
First They Killed My Father
In The Fade
Thelma

*ADRIENNE SHELLY AWARD: For a film that most passionately opposes violence against women:
Maudie
The Light Of The Moon
The Rape Of Recy Taylor
Wind River

*JOSEPHINE BAKER AWARD: For best expressing the woman of color experience in America
Girls Trip
Mudbound
Step
The Rape Of Recy Taylor

*KAREN MORLEY AWARD: For best exemplifying a woman’s place in history or society, and a courageous search for identity
Battle Of The Sexes
Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story
Mudbound
The Post
COURAGE IN ACTING [Taking on unconventional roles that radically redefine the images of women on screen]
Sally Hawkins, Maudie
Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Michelle Rodriguez, The Assignment
Charlize, Atomic Blonde
COURAGE IN FILMMAKING
Amma Asante, A United Kingdom
Kathryn Bigelow, Detroit
Angelina Jolie, First The Killed My Father
Dee Rees, Mudbound
THE INVISIBLE WOMAN AWARD [Supporting performance by a woman whose exceptional impact on the film dramatically, socially or historically, has been ignored]
Jessica Chastain, The Zookeeper’s Wife
Betty Gabriel, Get Out
Sally Hawkins, Maudie
Cynthia Nixon, A Quiet Passion
BEST DOCUMENTARY BY OR ABOUT WOMEN:
Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story
Faces Places
Jane
Step
WOMEN’S WORK: BEST ENSEMBLE
A Quiet Passion
Girls Trip
Sophie And The Rising Sun
Wonder Woman
BEST FEMALE ACTION HERO
Atomic Blonde
In The Fade
The Shape of Water
Wonder Woman
BEST EQUALITY OF THE SEXES
Atomic Blonde
Battle Of The Sexes
Professor Marston And The Wonder Women
Wonder Woman
BEST SCREEN COUPLE
Maudie
Professor Martson And The Wonder Women
The Big Sick
The Shape Of Water
BEST ANIMATED FEMALE(S)
Coco
Loving Vincent
The Breadwinner
Window Horses: The Poetic Persian Epiphany of Rosie Ming
BEST FAMILY FILM
Coco
Beauty And The Beast
The Breadwinner
Wonder
 
*ADRIENNE SHELLY AWARD: Adrienne Shelly was a promising actress and filmmaker who was brutally strangled in her apartment in 2006 at the age of forty by a construction worker in the building, after she complained about noise. Her killer tried to cover up his crime by hanging her from a shower20rack in her bathroom, to make it look like a suicide. He later confessed that he was having a “bad day.” Shelly, who left behind a baby daughter, had just completed her film Waitress, which she also starred in, and which was honored at Sundance after her death.

*JOSEPHINE BAKER AWARD: The daughter of a laundress and a musician, Baker overcame being born black, female and poor, and marriage at age fifteen, to become an internationally acclaimed legendary performer, starring in the films Princess Tam Tam, Moulin Rouge and Zou Zou. She also survived the race riots in East St. Louis, Illinois as a child, and later expatriated to France to escape US racism. After participating heroically in the underground French Resistance during WWII, Baker returned to the US where she was a crusader for racial equality. Her activism led to attacks against her by reporter Walter Winchell who denounced her as a communist, leading her to wage a battle against him. Baker was instrumental in ending segregation in many theaters and clubs, where she refused to perform unless integration was implemented.

*KAREN MORLEY AWARD: Karen Morley was a promising Hollywood star in the 1930s, in such films as Mata Hari and Our Daily Bread. She was driven out of Hollywood for her leftist political convictions by the Blacklist and for refusing to testify against other actors, while Robert Taylor and Sterling Hayden were informants against her. And also for daring to have a child and become a mother, unacceptable for female stars in those days. Morley maintained her militant political activism for the rest of her life, running for Lieutenant Governor on the American Labor Party ticket in 1954. She passed away in 2003, unrepentant to the end, at the age of 93.