Drive My Car Leads TFCA Award Winners

Drive My Car led the winners of the 2021 Toronto Film Critics Association Awards. The drama by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi won three TFCA Awards including Best Picture. Members convened via Zoom to debate and vote on the contenders with results announced live via Twitter. That Shelf writers among the membership of the TFCA are Jason Gorber, Courtney Small, Victor Stiff, and Pat Mullen.

Drive My Car also won Best International Feature, honouring a film released outside the Canada-USA domestic market in a language other than English, as well as Best Screenplay for Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe’s adaptation of the short story by Haruki Murakami. The film had its North American premiere at the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival and is currently in select theatres from Films We Like.

Also winning multiple TFCA Awards was Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut The Lost Daughter. The film won three TFCA Awards including Best First Feature. The Lost Daughter also won Best Actress for Olivia Colman and Best Supporting Actress for Jessie Buckley—the first time the group has honoured a pair of performers for portraying the same character in a film. Colman previously won the TFCA Award for The Favourite.

Other winners for the TFCA Awards included Denzel Washington as Best Actor for his titular performance in The Tragedy of Macbeth. Bradley Cooper won Best Supporting Actor for his memorable turn in Licorice Pizza. The comedy also earned nominations for Best Picture and Best Screenplay.

Jane Campion won Best Director for the drama The Power of the Dog. Campion’s film led the overall list of nominees for the TFCA Awards. The Power of the Dog was a runner-up in five categories including Best Picture. Summer of Soul and Flee won the awards for documentary and animated feature, respectively, with the latter being a runner up in the doc category as well.

The TFCA also announced the three nominees for this year’s Rogers Award for Best Canadian Feature. The nominees are Beans, directed by Tracey Deer; Night Raiders, directed by Danis Goulet; and Scarborough, directed by Shasha Nakhai and Rich Williamson. Beans is a personal coming-of-age story set amid the 1990 Oka Crisis and seen through the eyes of a young girl. Night Raiders is a timely dystopian drama about the ongoing effects of colonialism told with a twist of Indigenous futurism. Scarborough adapts the acclaimed novel by Catherine Hernandez and offers an intimate glimpse into the lives of three children in the GTA. The team of the winning film receives a $100,000 cash prize, courtesy of Rogers with runners-up receiving $5000. The winner will be announced at the upcoming TFCA Awards gala.

The TFCA is extremely grateful to founding sponsor Rogers Communications for the Rogers Best Canadian Film Award, to returning sponsors Labatt for the Stella Artois Jay Scott Prize for an emerging artist and to Cineplex Entertainment for the awards cocktail reception. The TFCA welcomes new sponsor Netflix as the official dinner sponsor and Company 3 for the Company 3 Clyde Gilmour Award. The TFCA also thanks sponsor G.H. Mumm Champagne and salutes stalwart supporters Zoomer Magazine, Chairman Mills and TAXI Toronto.

 

The full list of 2021 TFCA Award winners is as follows:

 

Best Picture:
Drive My Car (Films We Like)

Runners-Up:
Licorice Pizza (Universal Pictures Canada)
The Power of the Dog  (Netflix)

Rogers Award for Best Canadian Feature:
Nominees:
Beans (Mongrel Media)
Night Raiders (Elevation Pictures)
Scarborough (levelFILM)

Best Director:
Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog (Netflix)

Runners-Up:
Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Drive My Car (Films We Like)
Denis Villeneuve, Dune (Warner Bros. Canada)

Best Actress:
Olivia Colman, The Lost Daughter (Netflix)

Runners-up:
Penélope Cruz, Parallel Mothers (Mongrel Media)
Kristen Stewart, Spencer (Elevation Pictures)

Best Actor:
Denzel Washington, The Tragedy of Macbeth (AppleTV+)

Runners-Up:
Benedict Cumberbatch, The Power of the Dog (Netflix)
Andrew Garfield, tick, tick…BOOM! (Netflix)

Best Supporting Actress:
Jessie Buckley, The Lost Daughter (Netflix)

Runners-Up:
Kirsten Dunst, The Power of the Dog (Netflix)
Ruth Negga, Passing (Netflix)

Best Supporting Actor:
Bradley Cooper, Licorice Pizza (Universal Pictures Canada)

Runners-Up:
Ciarán Hinds, Belfast (Universal Pictures Canada)
Kodi Smith-McPhee, The Power of the Dog (Netflix)

Best Screenplay:
Ryûsuke Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe, Drive My Car (Films We Like)

Runners-Up:
Paul Thomas Anderson, Licorice Pizza (Universal Pictures Canada)
Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog (Netflix)

Allan King Documentary Award:
Summer of Soul (Searchlight Pictures)

Runners-Up:
Flee (Elevation Pictures)
The Velvet Underground (AppleTV+)

Best International Feature:
Drive My Car (Films We Like)

Runners-Up:
Petite Maman (Elevation Pictures)
The Worst Person in the World (MK2 Mile-end)

Best Animated Film:
Flee (Elevation Pictures)

Runners-Up:
Encanto (Disney Canada)
The Mitchells vs. the Machines (Netflix)

Best First Feature:
The Lost Daughter (Netflix)

Runners-Up:
Passing (Netflix)
Pig (Elevation Pictures)
Shiva Baby (Photon Films)



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