VIFF 2009: First three Canadian award winners announced

by Craig Takeuchi on October 16th, 2009 at 5:13 PM

Two of the three juried Canadian awards announced at the closing gala screening tonight (October 16) of the Vancouver International Film Festival have been won by Québécois filmmakers. The third was won by a local filmmaking team.

Directors Jan Binsse and David Tougas of Montreal won the $2,000 Most Promising Director of a Canadian Short Film award for "The Last Act" ("Le Dernier Act"). The film appeared as part of the "Yield" Canadian shorts program.

Women in Film & Television Vancouver named codirector, producer, and editor Nimisha Mukerji and coproducer Gillian Lowry of 65_RedRoses as the recipients of their Artistic Merit Award, which is presented to a B.C. female filmmaker with work selected for the Vancouver International Film Festival.

Montreal's Xavier Dolan won the $20,000 Canwest Award for Best Canadian Feature Film for I Killed My Mother (J'ai tué ma mí¨re), which was chosen from 19 films. The film, which starred Dolan (who made the film when he was 19 years old) and Anne Dorval (who appeared at the festival), was also submitted as Canada's submission to the best foreign language Oscar award.

The awards were presented at the screening of the French film Queen to Play at the Granville 7 cinemas.

Still to be announced are the audience awards for the most popular Canadian documentary, most popular Canadian film, most popular environmental film, favourite nonfiction film, and the People's Choice Award.

The VIFF Dragons & Tigers award was previously announced on October 9.