The Whistler Film Festival announced this year's batch of winning films on Sunday.
Picture Day, the feature film debut of Toronto director Kate Melville, was chosen out of eight finalists for the $15,000 Borsos Competition for Best Canadian Feature Film. The movie tells the coming-of-age story of Clare, a rebellious teen who is forced to repeat her final year of high school.
“This year, we are delighted to recognize a filmmaker whose work is revelatory: universal in its specificity, soulful, heartfelt, raw, intelligent, profoundly human and so much fun,” the Borsos jury said in a release.
Status Quo?, a documentary by Montreal’s Karen Cho about the history of the women’s movement in Canada, was awarded the World Documentary Award for its “relevance, courage and ambition,” the jury said.
Jon Ornoy’s short, True Love Waits, was chosen for the $15,000 MPPIA Short Film Award, which includes up to $100,000 in services. Look for his new completed project at next year’s festival, organizers noted.
Other winners include Requiem For Romance, by Jonathan Ng for the $1,000 Canadian Shortwork Award; Poland’s Marcin Bortkiewicz for Drawn From Memory in the International Shortwork Award category; Ready To Fly by William Kerig for the Best Mountain Culture Film Award and Plating by SFU student Jon Thomas as the winner of the $500 Shortwork Student Award.
Marie-Evelyne Lessard was also awarded a Jury Special Prize for her work in Les Maneges Humains/ Fair Sex.
The audience award — which festival-goers voted on by dropping their ticket stub in a box at the end of a film — will be announced at a festival wrap-up.
A complete list of winners will be announced on Tuesday.
