The various members of the Dublin Film Critics Circle have just retired after handing out their awards at the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival. Here is an image of one of the fine awards at rest. As you will not need to be told, it depicts Lady Lyndon out of Barry Lyndon walking around with a sheep. This is certainly something worth having and those who were still around seemed very happy to get theirs. (Incidentally, the fish tank — and corner of SpongeBob SquarePants within are not in any way relevant to this post.) The awards were awarded are below this lovely group shot.

L to R: Brogen Hayes, Old Bore, Tara Brady, Dave O’Mahony, Nicola Timmins, Daniel Anderson

Best Film – Vanishing Waves
Best Director – Mikhail Segal, Short Stories
Best Actor – Aleksey Vertkov, White Tiger
Best Actress – Dilan Aksüt, Night of Silence
Best Debut – Maja Milos, Clip
Best Screenplay – Oriol Paulo, Lara Sendim, The Body
Best Documentary – Far Out Isn’t Far Enough: The Tomi Ungerer Story
Best Irish Feature – Babygirl
Best Irish Documentary – Get the Picture
Best Cinematography – Oleg Mutu, Beyond the Hills
Jury Prize – Blancanieves
Jury Prize – After Lucia
Jury Prize – The King of Pigs
Michael Dwyer Discovery Award – Claire Dix, Broken Song

We have, as yet, no information on any imminent release for the winning film, Lithuanian speculative gem Vanishing Waves, but we will keep you informed if the situation changes. It was our view that the festival dug some very unexpected, left-field corkers. It is always worth worrying away at the corners at such events.

Meanwhile, over in Los Angeles, they were gearing up for some other awards ceremony or other. You can read my musings on the gongs here. By now you will know the score. Despite missing out on that nomination for direction, Argo remains a hugely strong favourite for best picture. One of the fun things this year is that we probably won’t know for certain until the final envelope is opened.

Enough gabbing. Time to get on with the show (or it will be in another eight hours). Keep yourself well. Mind the supplies. Don’t peak to early.