AFT Awards: Best Director

This is the twenty-fourth category of the 2nd Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Nominees are pictured in the order I’ve ranked them.

Runners-up:
CLINT EASTWOOD, CHANGELING
GUILLAUME CANET, TELL NO ONE
MIKE LEIGH, HAPPY-GO-LUCKY
ARNAUD DESPLECHIN, A CHRISTMAS TALE
ERAN KOLIRIN, THE BAND’S VISIT

The winner:
Ari Folman (Waltz with Bashir) crafted a magnificent story from his own memories and guided his amalgam of different forms with a steady, nostalgic hand.

Other nominees:
Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) used the slums of India as his set and took a number of untalented actors under his wing to create a marvelously entertaining story. Jonathan Demme (Rachel Getting Married) managed a frightening amount of intimacy and closeness with a broken family opening itself up for a big wedding. Courtney Hunt (Frozen River) guided her small cast of actors through a difficult but fascinating story about desperate mothers struggling to make their lives work during hard times. Charlie Kaufman (Synecdoche, New York) stepped behind the camera for the first time to direct one of his own wacky screenplays and magnificently utilized a whole fake city as his stage.