The Canadian Film Fest (CFF), an indie-spirited festival dedicated to celebrating Canadian filmmakers, revealed the award winners for their 2023 edition on Saturday, April 1, 2023 following a successful 5-day festival at Toronto’s Scotiabank Theatre and virtually across Canada on Super Channel Fuse.
Monia Chokri’s Babysitter won Best Feature and Best Set Design, Adrian Murray was honoured with DGC Ontario’s Best Director award for his film Retrograde, Fanie Pelletier’s documentary, Bloom, was awarded the William F. White Reel Canadian Indie Award, and Sandrine Brodeur-Desrosiers’s How To Get My Parents To Divorce won the feature film jury awards. Additionally, Joy Webster’s Menace won Best Short Film and Polarized took home People’s Pick for Best Flick.
“Congratulations to all of this year’s Canadian Film Fest winners. We’re honoured to be part of the film’s journey,” said Ashleigh Rains, Festival Director, Canadian Film Fest. “We are immensely proud of the incredible line-up of homegrown films we were able to showcase and grateful to those who participated and supported CFF this year. A special thanks to the jury who carefully reviewed all of the films and to Super Channel for being an amazing partner.”
See below for the complete list of winners for the 2023 Canadian Film Fest. For more information, visit canfilmfest.ca.
The 2023 Canadian Film Fest Award Winners:
BEST FEATURE – Babysitter
DGC ONTARIO’S BEST DIRECTOR – Adrian Murray, Retrograde
BEST SET DESIGN – Babysitter
WILLIAM F. WHITE REEL CANADIAN INDIE AWARD – Bloom
*The winner will receive a $5,000 gift certificate for equipment rental at William F. White.
BEST SHORT FILM – Menace
BEST SHORT FILM PRODUCER – Shyam Valera, Desi Standard Time Travel
PEOPLE’S PICK FOR BEST FLICK – Polarized
Feature Film Jury Awards:
The feature film jury included Barb Godfrey (The Arthur Agency), Jonas Chernick (actor and screenwriter), Faran Moradi (director) and Stephanie Sonny Hooker (producer).
BEST SCREENPLAY – How To Get My Parents To Divorce
BEST YOUTH ENSEMBLE – How To Get My Parents To Divorce, Charlotte St-Martin, Liam Patenaude, Charlie Fortier, Louka Amadeo Bélanger-Leos, Simone Laperle
Short Film Jury Awards:
The short film jury consisted of Michelle McLeod (actor), Emily Andrews (producer) and Rodrigo Fernandez-Stoll (actor).
BEST DOCUMENTARY – Quiet Minds Silent Streets
BEST PERFORMANCE – Eric Peterson, Junior’s Giant
BREAKOUT PERFORMANCE – Cassandra Paige, No Bedroom
BEST ENSEMBLE – The Untouchable
OUTSTANDING ANIMATION – Corvine
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY – There Was Nothing
About the Canadian Film Fest
The Canadian Film Fest (CFF) is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to supporting Canadian independent films and cultivating emerging and established filmmaking talent. Film-loving audiences come to enjoy a diverse selection of 100% Canadian film screenings (features & shorts) and filmmakers flock to the CFF’s various industry events to take advantage of essential networking opportunities. CFF’s mission is to celebrate the art of cinematic storytelling by showcasing Canadian films and filmmakers.
By Mr. Will Wong
The 2018 capture of Bruce McArthur helped alleviate much anxiety that haunted not only Toronto’s LGBTQ+ community, but also a nation as it became known that a serial killer targeting the Church-Wellesley village was on the loose and unaccounted for. Despite a guilty plea to eight counts of murder, one thing that the public couldn’t quite reconcile was how an unsuspecting 66-year-old landscaper and sometimes Mall Santa could be capable of such gruesome acts.
While Documentary Catching a Serial Killer: Bruce McArthur got its premiere earlier this month in the U.S., the story returns home to Canada with the Film set to premiere on SuperChannel. We certainly haven’t forgotten about McArthur‘s crimes, which have left an indelible scar on the community. The Film dares to ask the question how it was so many victims quietly and anonymously began disappearing for so many years, bringing into the conversation the question of race and ethnicity of his victims, a majority who were of Middle-Eastern or South Asian descent and closeted. It was his final victim Andrew Kinsman, a Caucasian man, whose disappearance drew police closer to their target.
While the Film attempts to paint a portrait of the Serial Killer through expert analysis and commentary, ultimately we don’t get that extra layer of insight from the criminal himself like recent features on the similar topics like Don’t F**k With Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer. What the Film does do well is compile a panel of subjects who offer their analysis of McArthur and his crimes like University of Toronto Criminologist Jooyoung Lee, who makes some sense how McArthur‘s very unassuming professions served to mask his secret dark behaviours. One of the most compelling subjects is an ex-lover who was lucky enough to make it out alive after nearly being choked to death by McArthur. There’s also Karen Fraser who employed McArthur as a landscaper before the grisly discovery that among some of his victims’ body parts might have been stored at among others, her home. She tried convincing the police he was innocent because she couldn’t believe what he was being accused of. And there’s also Toronto Police’s Hank Idsinga and Lead Investigator David Dickinson, who recount for us the painstaking journey gathering evidence, ultimately to having overwhelming evidence (6,000+ pages) finding their man.
There are things about the investigation that have never seen the light of day and perhaps it is best kept that way. The victims, families and the community have been through enough. Catching a Serial Killer: Bruce McArthur brings some needed closure to something that has been deeply unsettling, even long after the crime was solved. And if anything, McArthur‘s victims have a voice in all this after having lived their lives in the dark.
The 90-minute Documentary airs in Canada Friday, April 30 at 9 p.m. ET on Super Channel Fuse and is available via Super Channel On Demand the next day.
Super Channel and Canadian Film Fest are partnering again this year to bring the Festival home to Canadians!
Beginning Thursday, April 1 and running for three consecutive weekends, nine feature films will premiere on Super Channel Fuse on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT. All festival feature films will have a linear only limited run, so viewers are encouraged to catch them while they can and experience them festival-style during their linear broadcast. In addition, 30 short films from the CFF will be interspersed into the schedule around the feature film presentations for viewers to enjoy as part of the film festival experience.
Virtually, pre-recorded and live Q&As with filmmakers will be made available, in addition to access to industry programs online (panel discussions, masterclass) and a virtual awards presentation.
Opening the Festival this year is Sugar Daddy (dir. Wendy Morgan), starring Kelly McCormack (Letterkenny, A Simple Favour) and Colm Feore (The Umbrella Academy, Sensitive Skin, The Borgias), which follows a young talented musician who signs up to a paid dating website which takes her down a dark path – and her music along with it. Closing out the festival on April 17, will be Range Roads (dir. Kyle Thomas) making its Canadian premiere. Starring Alana Hawley-Purvis (The Great Fear) and Joe Perry (Everfall, Blood Mountain), this poignant film is an intimate story of grief, longing, and forgiveness, that explores the painful and beautiful complexities of what it means to be a family.
A complete list of Films below:
Thursday, April 1: Sugar Daddy (Drama) – Toronto premiere
Director: Wendy Morgan
Cast: Kelly McCormack, Colm Feore, Amanda Brugel, Ishan Davé, Nicholas Campbell, Kaniehtiio Horn, Aaron Ashmore, Noam Jenkins
Darren is a wickedly talented and unconventional young musician who dreams of making music like nobody has ever heard before. But she’s broke, juggling multiple part-time jobs, and has no time to create. Desperate for cash, she signs up to a sugar daddy paid-dating website and throws herself down a dark rabbit hole that forces her to grow up fast, shaping her music, and how she sees the world.
Friday, April 2: White Elephant (Drama) – Toronto premiere
Director: Andrew Chung
Cast: Zaarin Bushra, Gurleen Singh, Dulmika Kevin Hapuarachchi, Jesse Nasmith, Yahya Amin, Kumar Kapasi, Amanda Catibog, Kalyna Fisher, Riley James Myers, Kessandra Cook
Set in 1996, in a majority-minority neighbourhood in Scarborough, 16-year-old Pooja finds herself torn between her crush on a white boy, and her Brown and Black friends. Her relentless pursuit takes a violent turn, ultimately making her quest for love, a question of self-love.
Saturday, April 3: Woman in Car (Drama) – Canadian premiere
Director: Vanya Rose
Cast: Hélène Joy, Liane Balaban, Gabrielle Lazure, Aidan Ritchie, Anthony Lemke
Anne seems to have it all – sophistication, a house on the hill, an upcoming wedding to the ideal man. But when her stepson returns home with a beautiful woman, Anne develops an obsession with the stranger whom she fears could destroy the privileged life she has built. In a story about a woman who struggles to keep her secrets hidden, Vanya Rose explores issues of class, family, desire and deception. As the countdown to her wedding day winds down, Anne drives head-on into redemption from a life of lies.
Thursday, April 8: Chained (Crime, Thriller) – Toronto premiere
Director: Titus Heckel
Cast: Marlon Kazadi, Aleks Paunovic, Adrian Holmes
An abused and bullied boy discovers and befriends a criminal chained inside an abandoned warehouse, but after a violent betrayal the abused becomes the abuser, putting both their lives in peril.
Friday, April 9: Between Waves (Drama, Sci-Fi) – Toronto premiere
Director: Virginia Abramovich
Cast: Fiona Graham, Luke Robinson, Miguel Damiao, Stacey Bernstein, Sebastian Deery
Even after his presumed death, Jamie continues to be visited by her lover Isaac, a quantum physicist, who pleads for her to join him in a parallel plane. Jamie follows a map and notebook Isaac’s left behind and embarks on a journey to the island of São Miguel in the Azores. At the centre of the Atlantic Ocean, Jamie begins to untangle the truth of what really happened the night Isaac disappeared, learning that she had a greater part in it than she cares to remember. Straddling a fine line between enlightenment and madness, how far will Jamie go before she’s in too deep?
Saturday, April 10: The Last Villains, Mad Dog & the Butcher (Documentary) – Toronto Premiere
Director: Thomas Rinfret
Cast: Paul Vachon, alias “The Butcher”
The Last Villains is the larger-than-life story of the legendary Vachon family of pro wrestlers, as recounted by its only surviving member, Paul “The Butcher” Vachon.
Thursday, April 15: The Corruption of Divine Providence (Drama) – Toronto premiere
Director: Jeremy Torrie
Cast: Ali Skovbye, Elyse Levesque, David La Haye, Corey Sevier, Tantoo Cardinal
This is the story of a sixteen-year-old Métis girl Jeanne. She resides in a small northern town, and one day she mysteriously disappears. When she is found, she is near death and has developed what appears to be stigmata, the wounds that echo those carried by Jesus Christ in his dying moments.
Friday, April 16: Events Transpiring Before, During and After a Highschool Basketball Game (Comedy) – Toronto premiere
Director: Ted Stenson
Cast: Andrew Phung, Benjamin Arthurs, Paul Cowling, Isra Abdelrahim
It’s 1999 and the Middleview Ducks boys’ basketball team are about to play the most low-stakes game of their lives. As the team prepares for another certain loss, the dramas around the game become more of a focus than the score. Locker room conversations about existentialism, an assistant coach’s obsession with an NBA offence technique, organizing a radical theatre protest, and frantically searching for an osteoporosis- stricken canine are just some of the events that take place before, during, and after the high school basketball game.
Saturday, April 17: Range Roads (Drama) – Canadian Premiere
Director: Kyle Thomas
Cast: Alana Hawley Purvis, Joe Perry, Chad Brownlee, Nicole de Boer
When her parents are killed in a sudden car accident, television actor Frankie King returns to her hometown in rural Alberta to face this tragedy after being estranged from her family for 20 years. As she struggles to reconnect with her truculent brother Grayson, old wounds are reopened, and family secrets uncovered.
All Features air at 9 PM ET with Short Film and introduction beforehand.
More details can be found here.
(Photo credit: Canadian Film Fest)
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