'MOONLIGHT' Takes Gold in 2016 Seattle Film Critics Society Awards

Seattle, WA – Barry Jenkins’ groundbreaking drama Moonlight was the big winner with Seattle’s film critics community, winning 6 Seattle Film Awards including Best Picture. In addition to winning the biggest prize as selected by the Seattle Film Critics Society, Jenkins was named Best Director and his screenplay, co-written with Tarell Alvin McCraney, earned Best Screenplay honors. The film’s cast took home the Best Ensemble Cast prize, with Mahershala Ali winning Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Juan, a father-figure of sorts to the film’s lead character Chiron, a young African-American male coming to terms with his sexual orientation. Elsewhere, the film nabbed a prize for Best Editing, turning 10 nominations into 6 wins.

French film Elle and South Korean import The Handmaiden took home two awards each. For her performance as a woman attempting to find out who brutally attacked her in Elle, veteran actress Isabelle Huppert was named Best Actress. Elle also was named Best Foreign Language Film.

Though The Handmaiden did not win the Foreign Language award, Park Chan-wook’s critically acclaimed colonial Korean drama won prizes for Costume Design and Production Design.

Joining Huppert and Ali in the actor’s winning circle was Casey Affleck, who added Seattle to his vast array of wins this awards season as Best Actor for Manchester By The Sea. Viola Davis took home the Best Supporting Actress prize for her work in Denzel Washington’s Fences.

Science-fiction hit Arrival, which earned 9 nominations, scored three wins, including Best Original Score for composer Jóhann Jóhannsson’s powerful work – deemed ineligible by the Academy – Best Cinematography and shared a win for Best Visual Effects with Disney/Marvel’s Doctor Strange.

Entering with a co-leading 10 nominations, Oscar hopeful La La Land was surprisingly shut out in all categories, going home empty-handed.

In one of the Society’s newest awards, Best Youth Performance, Anya Taylor-Joy won for horror film The Witch, playing a daughter making sense of strange, unexplainable events enveloping her family in 17th century New England.

The other new award introduced this year, Best Villain, was awarded to John Goodman for his portrayal as bunker-dwelling Howard Stambler in last spring’s 10 Cloverfield Lane. Goodman edged out a real-life goat, The Witch’s “Black Phillip” to win the villainous accolades.

Walt Disney’s Zootopia was named Best Animated Feature, while Ezra Edelman’s incredible seven-and-a-half hour look at one of the highest profile murder cases in recent history, and the racial unrest surrounding it, O.J.: Made In America, was named the year’s Best Documentary.

The official list of winners of the 2016 Seattle Film Awards are listed below:

THE 2016 SEATTLE FILM CRITICS SOCIETY SEATTLE FILM AWARD WINNERS:

BEST PICTURE OF THE YEAR: Moonlight (A24)

BEST DIRECTOR: Barry Jenkins, Moonlight

BEST ACTOR: Casey Affleck, Manchester By The Sea

BEST ACTRESS: Isabelle Huppert, Elle

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Mahershala Ali, Moonlight

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Viola Davis, Fences

BEST ENSEMBLE CAST: Moonlight

BEST SCREENPLAY: Moonlight – Barry Jenkins, Tarell McCraney

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE: Zootopia – Byron Howard and Rich Moore, directors; Jared Bush, co-director.

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: Elle – Paul Verhoeven, director