Jorden Peele, Ava DuVernay & More Celebrate The Best In Film & TV At The 9th Annual AAFCA Awards

The 9th annual African American Film Critics Association (AAFCA) awards brought together some Hollywood heavyweights like Jordan Peele, Ava DuVernay, Rob Reiner, Frances McDormand, and Courtney B. Vance to honor the best achievements of 2017’s film and television slate.

The winner’s list was unearthed this past December and among those who were in attendance were Peele, whose film, Get Out, picked up three awards, along with DuVernay and the stars of her OWN hit series Queen Sugar, as well as McDormand for her performance in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and some of the cast of the Kathryn Bigelow-directed drama, Detriot.

“I had it in my head that there was a missing piece of the conversation. There was a film we were begging for that wasn’t there for us. Horror films are an important genre because that’s how we face our fears…we face our horrors,” said Peele, during one of his multiple turns onstage “As black people, we are subjected to horrors every day. So despite the fact that we didn’t see the representations of our ideas, our faces, our point of views, on screen, we are loyal horror film audience. I wanted to film that gap.”

DuVernay, who is gearing up for the release of the highly anticipated tentpole, A Wrinkle In Time, reflected on how the project came at the right time.

“After 13th, I was in a tough place,” she shared, having to “look through over 1000 hours of racist, violent footage… we saw horrible, horrible things.” She continued, “I really wanted to make pretty things that fly and Disney gave me that opportunity. Wrinkle really saved me in a lot of ways. It was a refuged.”

“I wanted to get to a place where there were no rooms, no limits, only doors to walk through. I can’t express, with Wrinkle, the kind of experience it was for me as a filmmaker and as a person, as it was really expansive.”

Reiner, who was honored with the Stanley Kramer Award for social justice, took his time onstage to speak about the current political climate.

“[Donald Trump] gets into office and there are good people on both sides in Charlottesville and there are people coming from shithole countries and it goes on,” said Reiner, who is not one to mince words with it comes to Trump’s White House administration.

“We thought we were on the sly path but we’ve been dragged back and we’re going to win because if we don’t win, the promise of what this country started as, which is we are all one, we are all created equal, that promise will not be realized unless we can overcome what has happened in this last election.”

The celebration took place at the Taglyan Complex in Hollywood.

Here is the full list of previously announced winners.

BEST PICTURE
GET OUT (Universal Pictures)

BEST DIRECTOR
JORDAN PEELE – GET OUT (Universal Pictures)

BEST ACTOR
DANIEL KALUUYA – GET OUT (Universal Pictures)

BEST ACTRESS
FRANCES McDORMAND – THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING MISSOURI (Fox Searchlight)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
LAURENCE FISHBURNE – LAST FLAG FLYING (Amazon Studios/Lionsgate)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
TIFFANY HADDISH – GIRLS TRIP (Universal Pictures)

BEST COMEDY
GIRLS TRIP (Universal Pictures)

BEST ENSEMBLE
DETROIT (Annapurna Pictures)

BEST INDEPENDENT
CROWN HEIGHTS (Amazon Studios/IFC Films)

BEST ANIMATED
COCO (Disney/Pixar)

BEST DOCUMENTARY
STEP (Fox Searchlight)

BEST FOREIGN
THE WOUND (Kino Lorber)

BEST SCREENPLAY
GET OUT (Universal Pictures)

BEST SONG
“IT AINT FAIR” – DETROIT – THE ROOTS featuring BILAL (Motown Records)

BEST NEW MEDIA
MUDBOUND (Netflix)

BEST TV SERIES (COMEDY)
BLACK-ISH (ABC)

BEST TV SERIES (DRAMA)
QUEEN SUGAR (OWN)

BREAKOUT
LAKEITH STANFIELD – CROWN HEIGHTS (Amazon Studios/IFC Films)