‘Moonlight’ shines at African-American Film Critics awards, where inclusion is a celebration

At the Academy Awards in two weeks, all eyes will be on the best picture battle between “La La Land” and “Moonlight.” But Wednesday night at the African-American Film Critics Assn.’s Awards in Hollywood, the Barry Jenkins-directed coming-of-age tale was all anyone could talk about.

“Moonlight” took home five of the organization’s honors, including best film, director, and supporting actor for Mahershala Ali, who like Jenkins will vie for his first Oscar on Feb. 26.

Filmed on a modest $1.5-million budget, the A24 release easily snagged AAFCA’s independent film award, while breakthrough performance went to musician-actress Janelle Monáe, who made her film debut in “Moonlight” and also stars, with Ali, in Fox’s Oscar-nominated drama “Hidden Figures.”

Though much of the evening’s praise went to Jenkins, in accepting the director award from John Singleton, he thanked the film’s backers for allowing him to maintain his artistic point of view.

“Fifteen, 20, 30 years ago, the people who wrote the checks opened the door — but when they opened the door, they said, ‘I’m going to take your voice, a little bit of it. You keep 80%, I’m going to take 20%,’ ” he said. “I’m going to quote Solange [Knowles] and say that on this film, those people who opened that door... did not touch my hair. I ain’t got a lot of it, but they didn’t touch it.”

A robust year for film and television saw the 8th AAFCA fete in celebration mode, compared to the calls to action that punctuated last year’s awards during the height of the #OscarsSoWhite controversy. But the shadow of the extreme challenges still facing underrepresented voices in Hollywood, and the country at large, loomed large.

Walking the red carpet in crimson, Tony-nominated singer, actress and activist Sheryl Lee Ralph, who is married to Pennsylvania state Sen. Vincent Hughes, reacted to the confirmation a few hours earlier of President Trump nominee Jeff Sessions as the new U.S. attorney general.

“Coretta Scott King tried to speak from her grave, to tell you the truth,” she said, citing a 1986 letter written by the widow of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. that criticized Sessions’ record on civil rights that Sen. Elizabeth Warren was blocked from reading on the Senate floor Tuesday night, “but we don’t want to hear the truth right now.

“We have been blinded by the reality show. We are getting the politics we voted for -- or didn’t vote for. We are getting exactly what we thought we needed when we found it so easy to turn our noses up at peace, kindness and decency, the way we saw it in the White House the past eight years.

“So, you like what you got now? Is that who you really are?” she said, addressing the American people.

She leaned in closer. “We’re in bad shape, baby.”

Guests were reminded of Hollywood’s history of using art to enact social change by Karen Sharpe, actress and wife of the late director Stanley Kramer, who accepted the AAFCA Icon Award on behalf of screen legend Sidney Poitier.

“Stanley and Sidney made three groundbreaking films together,” Sharpe said, citing her husband’s career using movies “as a weapon to fight against bigotry, discrimination, man’s inhumanity to man and the excessive abuse of power.”

A 50th anniversary copy of Kramer’s Oscar-winning 1967 film “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” went home with every attendee, along with a reminder that the movie, about a liberal white family meeting their daughter’s African American fiancé, was made at a time when interracial relationships were still illegal in 17 states.

Lou Diamond Phillips, presenting the animated film award to “Zootopia,” went off script to share his own story about Poitier, 89, who was unable to attend.

“This is what we strive for: To be accepted for our talent without categorization, without hyphenation, and until we get there, we do things like this,” said Phillips. “We recognize and we represent.”

Accepting her AAFCA honor less than two weeks after Trump issued an executive order targeting refugees and immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries, Monáe issued a strong message encouraging people to support the underrepresented, much like her “Moonlight” character does for the film’s lead.

“It’s important that as we see those who are marginalized, that we look to provide shelter, comfort and a safe space for people to be able to just live and be themselves and be celebrated for who they are — who we are,” she said.

“My hope is that when we see those who are ostracized or bullied, and told they don’t belong because of their gender, their class, their race, their sexual orientation, their religious practices, because they’re wearing a turban — that we step up to protect them from those who will seek to damage, defame, demoralize and de-legitimize their existence.

“We all belong. And it’s always been our job to protect one another.”

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