London Film Critics’ Circle Awards 2006 Winners
by Andre Soares
Kimberly French / Focus Films
At a ceremony held this evening, London Film Critics’ Circle Awards chairman William Russell stated that Best Film winner Brokeback Mountain “has all the ingredients of a classic love story, except that the lovers are two young ranch hands who fall in love one summer while herding sheep, but go on to marry and have children, while continuing to meet over the years.
“[Best Director winner] Ang Lee has succeeded in presenting this highly controversial situation in an intelligent and sensitive fashion, and secured outstanding performances from the entire cast.
“It is a feat which has been rightly recognized.”
Other winners include the unjustly ignored (in the U.S.) Ralph Fiennes, as Best British Actor (the London Critics divide most of their awards into British and non-British categories) for his performance in the political thriller/love story The Constant Gardener, which also took the Best British Film award; Best British Actress Rachel Weisz, for the same film (in the U.S. she’s in the running for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar); Best Actor Bruno Ganz for playing a humanized Adolf Hitler 
in Der Untergang / Downfall (the picture also won the Best Foreign-Language Film award); Best Actress Naomi Watts (actually born in Britain, though raised in Australia) for King Kong; and Best British Director Joe Wright for Pride & Prejudice (The Constant Gardener director, the Brazilian national Fernando Meirelles, was obviously ineligible in that category, else he would most likely have won).
Director Bryan Forbes (Seance on a Wet Afternoon, The Whisperers) won the Dilys Powell Award for outstanding contribution to cinema.
Russell’s quote found on the BBC.
List of the British Academy of Film 2006 nominees
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