ICS accepts the mystery of A Serious Man

From the International Cinephile Society press release:

The Coen brothers’ profound and hilarious retelling of the Book of Job, set in a midwestern Jewish suburb in 1967 on the cusp of the Sexual Revolution, has won the ICS award for best film of 2009. Best director and original screenplay kudos also went to Joel and Ethan Coen’s A Serious Man, perhaps their most personal and certainly their most brilliant exploration of the relationship between God and Man.

Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon, a disturbing tale of pre-Nazi German repression, took runner-up honors for film and director, as well as winning top prizes for Christian Berger’s evocative black-and-white cinematography and for best film not in the English language.

The other big ICS winner was Fantastic Mr. Fox with three awards, including best animated film, the clever adapted screenplay by writer/director Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach, and Nelson Lowry’s fantastically stylized and textured production design.

Top acting honors went to Colin Firth in A Single Man for his emotional, nuanced turn as a gay professor dealing with the loss of his long-time lover, and to Tilda Swinton in a tour-de-force alcoholic paean to dysfunctional maternal instinct as Julia. In memorable supporting roles, Christoph Waltz got a bingo for Inglourious Basterds, while Vera Farmiga seduced us with her honesty (or did she?) in Up in the Air.

PICTURE
01. A Serious Man
02. The White Ribbon
03. Fantastic Mr. Fox
04. Inglourious Basterds
05. Tokyo Sonata
06. 35 Shots of Rum
07. The Hurt Locker
08. District 9
09. Bright Star
10. Up In The Air

DIRECTOR
Ethan & Joel Coen – A Serious Man
runner-up: Michael Haneke – The White Ribbon

FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
01. The White Ribbon
02. Tokyo Sonata
03. 35 Shots of Rum
04. Summer Hours
05. Broken Embraces
06. Still Walking
07. Lorna’s Silence
08. The Beaches of Agnès
09. Ponyo
10. O’Horten
11. The Headless Woman

ACTOR
Colin Firth – A Single Man
runner- up: Michael Stuhlbarg – A Serious Man

ACTRESS
Tilda Swinton – Julia
runner-up: Abbie Cornish – Bright Star

SUPPORTING ACTOR
Christoph Waltz – Inglourious Basterds
runner-up: Peter Capaldi – In the Loop

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Vera Farmiga – Up In The Air
runners-up: Mo’Nique – Precious, and Penélope Cruz – Broken Embraces

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
A Serious Man – Ethan & Joel Coen
runner-up: Inglourious Basterds – Quentin Tarantino

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Fantastic Mr. Fox – Wes Anderson & Noah Baumbach
runner-up: In the Loop – Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci & Tony Roche

CINEMATOGRAPHY
The White Ribbon – Christian Berger
runner-up: Inglourious Basterds – Robert Richardson

EDITING
The Hurt Locker – Chris Innis & Bob Murawski
runner-up: Broken Embraces – José Salcedo

PRODUCTION DESIGN
Fantastic Mr. Fox – Nelson Lowry
runner-up: A Serious Man – Jess Gonchor

ORIGINAL SCORE
A Single Man – Abel Korzeniowski
runner-up: Fantastic Mr. Fox – Alexandre Desplat

ENSEMBLE
In the Loop
runner-up: The White Ribbon

ANIMATED FILM
Fantastic Mr. Fox
runner-up: Ponyo

DOCUMENTARY
The Beaches of Agnès
runner-up: Anvil! The Story of Anvil