Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation, Margaret’s Anna Paquin (photo), Weekend’s Tom Cullen, and The Tree of Life’s Terrence Malick and Brad Pitt were some of the winners of the 2012 International Cinephile Society Awards. The honors are announced by "an online group made up of approximately 80 accredited journalists, film scholars, historians and other industry professionals who cover film festivals and events on five continents." And cinephiles they clearly are; some of their choices would put the U.S.-based National Society of Film Critics to shame. [Full list of International Cinephile Society winners and runners-up.]
Writer-director Farhadi’s Iranian family drama A Separation, which is up for the Best Foreign Language Film and Best Original Screenplay Academy Awards, won as Best Picture of 2011, in addition to Best Film Not in the English Language, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Ensemble (including Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress runners-up Peyman Moaadi and Shahab Hosseini). Farhadi was also the runner-up for Best Director.
Paquin was the Best Actress winner for her performance in Kenneth Lonergan’s much-praised but little-seen psychological drama Margaret, while Tom Cullen was voted Best Actor for his enamored gay man in Andrew Haigh’s Weekend.
Terrence Malick was the Best Director for the cosmic family drama The Tree of Life, which also earned citations for Best Supporting Actor Brad Pitt, Best Cinematography (Emmanuel Lubezki), and Best Film Editing (Hank Corwin, Jay Rabinowitz, Daniel Rezende, Billy Weber, Mark Yoshikawa). The Best Supporting Actress was Margaret’s J. Smith-Cameron.
Among the other ICS winners were Mysteries of Lisbon’s Carlos Saboga and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’s Bridget O’Connor and Peter Straughan, who tied for the Best Adapted Screenplay Award; Gore Verbinski’s animated feature Rango; and Andrei Ujica’s The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu.
Anna Paquin/Margaret photo: Myles Aronowitz / Fox Searchlight.