Vancouver Film Critics Circle — the winners!

I just got home from a club in downtown Vancouver, where the Vancouver Film Critics Circle announced the winners of its ninth annual awards — and it was a fun little evening, all told.

In addition to the winners listed below, a lifetime achievement award was given posthumously to William Vince, a local filmmaker — he produced Capote (2005), among other things — who passed away last summer at the age of 44. Vince’s former business partners accepted it on his behalf, and emcee Terry David Mulligan paid him a touching tribute.

It was my job to announce the winner of the Best Actor award, and when I opened the envelope and saw that it was Sean Penn, I couldn’t resist saying, “Because he smiled.” But I wondered afterwards if anyone got the reference. Ah well, a fellow critic told me my delivery of that line was good, at least.

And now for the winners. Here are the nominees for the various categories I listed last week, with the winners in bold:

CANADIAN FILMS

BEST CANADIAN FILM
C’est pas moi, je le jure!
Heaven on Earth
The Necessities of Life

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A CANADIAN FILM
Antoine L’Écuyer, C’est pas moi, je le jure!
Jim Sturgess, Fifty Dead Men Walking
Natar Ungalaaq, The Necessities of Life

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A CANADIAN FILM
Marianne Fortier, Maman est chez le coiffeur
Julianne Moore, Blindness
Preity Zinta, Heaven on Earth

BEST PERFORMANCE BY A SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A CANADIAN FILM
Gael Garcia Bernal, Blindness
Randy Quaid, Real Time
Mark Ruffalo, Blindness

BEST PERFORMANCE BY A SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A CANADIAN FILM
Suzanne Clément, C’est pas moi, je le jure!
Maya Ritter, Finn’s Girl
Jayne Eastwood, Real Time

BEST DIRECTOR OF A CANADIAN FILM
Atom Egoyan, Adoration
Philippe Falardeau, C’est pas moi, je le jure!
Deepa Mehta, Heaven on Earth

BEST BRITISH COLUMBIA FILM
Fifty Dead Men Walking
Edison & Leo
Stone of Destiny

INTERNATIONAL FILMS

BEST FILM
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire
WALL•E

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A LEAD ROLE
Sean Penn, Milk
Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A LEAD ROLE
Sally Hawkins, Happy-Go-Lucky
Meryl Streep, Doubt
Kate Winslet, Revolutionary Road/The Reader

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Josh Brolin, Milk
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Viola Davis, Doubt
Rosemarie DeWitt, Rachel Getting Married
Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler

BEST DIRECTOR
Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Gus Van Sant, Milk

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
The Edge of Heaven
Let the Right One In
Tell No One

For what it’s worth, my own choices won in all but four of these categories, but just to keep a little mystery, I won’t say which four they were, or what I would have picked in those categories.