‘Roma’, ‘The Favourite’ lead EDA Award winners for 2018
The Alliance of Women Film Journalists (AWFJ), an international association of female film critics, reporters, and feature writers, announce the winners of their annual EDA Award.
The awards are divided into three main categories: a standard ‘Best in Category’ selection; the ‘Female Focus’ nominees, which honour significant women in film; and the irreverent ‘EDA Special Mention Awards,’ which provide anti-awards for everything from failed attempts to examples of flagrant bias.
In issuing the award results, AWJF founder and film critic Jennifer Merin remarked: “Representing women film critics’ perspectives on the world’s constantly evolving cinema scene, the AWFJ is proud that our 2018 EDA Awards nominees and winners genuinely reflect the movie industry’s advances in the cause of equality and diversity.” The EDAs are named for Eda Reiss Merin, a stage, film, and television actress whose career spanned over sixty years, and one of the founders of AFTRA (the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists).
Yorgos Lanthimos’ biographical comedy/drama, The Favourite, received four honours from the Alliance, including both Best Actress and ‘Bravest Performance’ for the film’s star, Olivia Coleman; Best Original Screenplay; and Best Woman Screenwriter in the Female Focus category. Five awards were given to the widely praised Roma, Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron’s drama about a housemaid in 1970s Mexico City. Cuaron’s film takes the award for Best Film, cinematography, best non-English-language film, and editing, as well as the directing award for Cuaron himself.
Other significant EDA awards for 2018:
- Can You Ever Forgive Me? featuring Melissa McCarthy as disgraced author Lee Israel, for best adapted screenplay
- Won’t You Be My Neighbour?, the biography of children’s entertainer Mister Rogers, for Best Documentary
- Best Actor to Ethan Hawke for First Reformed
- Black Panther for Best Ensemble Cast
In the Female Focus category:
- Marielle Heller received the Best Director award for Can You Ever Forgive Me?
- The award for Outstanding Achievement by a woman in the film industry went to Rachel Morrison, one of the most highly regarded female cinematographers in film, and director of photography for the highly successful Black Panther
In the EDA Special Mention Award category:
- In response to her role in Red Sparrow, Jennifer Lawrence was named Actress Most in Need of a New Agent
- Honours for Actress Defying Age and Ageism went to Viola Davis for her performance in Widows
- 2018’s most egregious age difference between the lead and the love interest went to Tom Cruise and Rebecca Ferguson for Mission Impossible: Fallout
- Overboard was named Remake or Sequel that Shouldn’t Have Been Made
- Finally the AWFJ Hall of Shame Award was shared among a host of recently disclosed serial abusers, led by Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.
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