John Dunning Best First Feature Award

"Claude Jutra Award" redirects here. Not to be confused with Prix Jutra.

The John Dunning Best First Feature Award is a special Canadian film award, presented by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to the year's best feature film by a first-time film director. Under the earlier names Claude Jutra Award and Canadian Screen Award for Best First Feature, the award has been presented since the 14th Genie Awards in 1993.^[1][2]

Formerly a juried prize whose winner was announced in advance of the ceremony, the award is now presented as a conventional category with a full shortlist of nominees.

To date six films, The Confessional (Le Confessionnal), Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, Away from Her, A Colony (Une colonie), Beans and Scarborough, have won both the Best First Feature and Best Picture awards in the same year; the directors of Le Confessionnal, Atanarjuat, Away from Her and Scarborough also won the award for Best Director for the same films.

History

The award was originally named in memory of Claude Jutra, a Canadian film director who died in 1986.^[3] Formerly part of the Genie Awards ceremonies, the Claude Jutra Award was transitioned to be part of the new Canadian Screen Awards in 2013.

Following the February 2016 publication of Yves Lever's biography of Jutra, which contained allegations that Jutra had sexually abused underage children during his lifetime, the Academy announced that it was removing Jutra's name from the award.^[4] Québec Cinéma also removed Jutra's name from its Prix Jutra ceremonies on the same day.^[4]

Beginning with the 4th Canadian Screen Awards in 2016, the award was presented as the Canadian Screen Award for Best First Feature. In the same year the John Dunning Discovery Award, named in memory of film producer John Dunning, was introduced to honour microbudget films. Initially it was a separate award from the Best First Feature category, with the two awards presented alongside each other to different films,^[5] until the two awards were merged under the John Dunning Best First Feature Award name beginning with the 7th Canadian Screen Awards in 2019.

Winners

Claude Jutra Award

Year	Film	Director	Ref
1993 14th Genie Awards	The Grocer's Wife	John Pozer	[1]
1994 15th Genie Awards	Louis 19, King of the Airwaves (Louis 19, le roi des ondes)	Michel Poulette	[1]
1995 16th Genie Awards	The Confessional (Le Confessionnal)	Robert Lepage	[1]
1996 17th Genie Awards	Joe's So Mean to Josephine	Peter Wellington	[1]
1997 18th Genie Awards	The Hanging Garden	Thom Fitzgerald	[1]
1998 19th Genie Awards	Last Night	Don McKellar	[1]
1999 20th Genie Awards	Post Mortem	Louis Bélanger	[1]
2000 21st Genie Awards	The Left-Hand Side of the Fridge (La Moitié gauche du frigo)	Philippe Falardeau	[1]
2001 22nd Genie Awards	Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner	Zacharias Kunuk	[1]
2002 23rd Genie Awards	Flower & Garnet	Keith Behrman	[1]
2003 24th Genie Awards	How My Mother Gave Birth to Me During Menopause (Comment ma mère accoucha de moi durant sa ménopause)	Sébastien Rose	[1]
2004 25th Genie Awards	White Skin (La Peau blanche)	Daniel Roby	[1]
2005 26th Genie Awards	Familia	Louise Archambault	[1]
2006 27th Genie Awards	Eve and the Fire Horse	Julia Kwan	[1]
	The Secret Life of Happy People (La Vie secrète des gens heureux)	Stéphane Lapointe
2007 28th Genie Awards	Away from Her	Sarah Polley	[1]
2008 29th Genie Awards	Everything Is Fine (Tout est parfait)	Yves Christian Fournier	[1]
2009 30th Genie Awards	I Killed My Mother (J'ai tué ma mère)	Xavier Dolan	[1]
2010 31st Genie Awards	Exit 67 (Sortie 67)	Jephté Bastien	[6]
2011 32nd Genie Awards	Nuit #1	Anne Émond	[7]
2012 1st Canadian Screen Awards	Blackbird	Jason Buxton	[8]
2013 2nd Canadian Screen Awards	Whitewash	Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais	[9]
2014 3rd Canadian Screen Awards	Bang Bang Baby	Jeffrey St. Jules	[10]

Best First Feature

Year	Film	Director	Ref
2015 4th Canadian Screen Awards	River	Jamie M. Dagg	[11]
2016 5th Canadian Screen Awards	Old Stone	Johnny Ma	[12]
2017 6th Canadian Screen Awards	Ava	Sadaf Foroughi	[13]

John Dunning Discovery Award

Year	Film	Director	Ref
2015 4th Canadian Screen Awards
	Mina Walking	Yosef Baraki	[14]
2016 5th Canadian Screen Awards
	The Lockpicker	Randall Okita	[15]
2017 6th Canadian Screen Awards
	Black Cop	Cory Bowles	[16]
	The Devout	Connor Gaston	[17]
	Wexford Plaza	Joyce Wong

John Dunning Best First Feature Award

Year	Film	Director	Ref
2018 7th Canadian Screen Awards
	A Colony (Une colonie)	Geneviève Dulude-De Celles	[18]
	Family First (Chien de garde)	Sophie Dupuis	[18]
	Firecrackers	Jasmin Mozaffari
	The Nest (Le nid)	David Paradis
	Touched	Karl R. Hearne
2019 8th Canadian Screen Awards
	Murmur	Heather Young	[19]
	Black Conflux	Nicole Dorsey	[20]
	Mad Dog Labine	Jonathan Beaulieu-Cyr, Renaud Lessard
	Sympathy for the Devil (Sympathie pour le diable)	Guillaume de Fontenay
	The Twentieth Century	Matthew Rankin
2020 9th Canadian Screen Awards
	Beans	Tracey Deer	[21]
	The Kid Detective	Evan Morgan	[22]
	Tito	Grace Glowicki
	Vacarme	Neegan Trudel
	Violation	Madeleine Sims-Fewer, Dusty Mancinelli
2021 10th Canadian Screen Awards
	Scarborough	Shasha Nakhai, Rich Williamson	[23]
	Islands	Martin Edralin	[24]
	Night Raiders	Danis Goulet
	The Noise of Engines (Le Bruit des moteurs)	Philippe Grégoire
	Without Havana (Sin la Habana)	Kaveh Nabatian
2022 11th Canadian Screen Awards
	Falcon Lake	Charlotte Le Bon	[25]
	The Maiden	Graham Foy	[26]
	Noemie Says Yes (Noémie dit oui)	Geneviève Albert
	Rodeo (Rodéo)	Joëlle Desjardins Paquette
	Wolves	Danny Dunlop
2023 12th Canadian Screen Awards
	In Flames	Zarrar Kahn	[27]
	Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (Vampire humaniste cherche suicidaire consentant)	Ariane Louis-Seize	[28]
	Kanaval	Henri Pardo
	Richelieu	Pier-Philippe Chevigny
	Something You Said Last Night	Luis De Filippis
	Through the Night (Quitter la nuit)	Delphine Girard

See also

• Prix Iris for Best First Film
• Toronto International Film Festival Award for Best Canadian First Feature Film

References

1. Claude Jutra Award, The Canadian Encyclopedia.
2. Valerie J. Webster (1998). Awards, Honors & Prizes: United States and Canada 1999. Gale Research. p. 3. ISBN 978-0-7876-1501-7.
3. Maria Topalovich, And the Genie Goes To...: Celebrating 50 Years of the Canadian Film Awards. Stoddart Publishing, 2000. ISBN 0-7737-3238-1. pp. 199-203.
4. "Claude Jutra's name to be pulled from Quebec film awards" Archived March 1, 2016, at the Wayback Machine. Ottawa Citizen, February 17, 2016.
5. "Canadian Screen Awards leave Hollywood behind". The Globe and Mail, January 16, 2018.
6. "Incendies, Barney's Version dominate Genies". CBC News, March 10, 2011.
7. "Quebec's Anne Émond wins debut director award". CBC News, February 22, 2012.
8. "Blackbird director Jason Buxton wins first-film honour". CBC News. January 29, 2013. Retrieved January 30, 2013.
9. "Le Claude-Jutra à Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais". Le Devoir. January 23, 2014.
10. "Academy Names Claude Jutra Award Winner" Archived 2015-02-04 at the Wayback Machine. Broadcaster, February 3, 2015.
11. "Jamie M. Dagg wins Claude Jutra Award for Laos-set thriller River". CBC News, February 4, 2016.
12. "Ma's 'Old Stone' gets Canadian academy's Best First Feature award". CTV News, February 2, 2017.
13. "Sadaf Foroughi's 'Ava' wins best first feature film from Canadian Screen Awards". National Post, January 31, 2018.
14. "Mina Walking Honoured with Inaugural Discovery Award". Cision, January 19, 2016.
15. "Randall Okita to receive inaugural John Dunning Discovery Award". Playback, January 12, 2017.
16. "Northern Banner picks up Cory Bowles’ Black Cop". Playback, April 25, 2018.
17. Norman Wilner, "The Canadian Screen Awards showers love on (almost) everyone". Now, January 16, 2018.
18. "Les Québécois remportent plus de la moitié des trophées à l'avant-gala des prix Écrans canadiens". Ici Radio-Canada, March 31, 2019.
19. "Filmmaker from Saint John wins Canadian Screen Award". CBC News New Brunswick, June 1, 2020.
20. Norman Wilner, "Canadian Screen Awards 2020: Prepare for a Schitt's show". Now, February 18, 2020.
21. Naman Ramachandran, "‘Schitt’s Creek,’ ‘Blood Quantum’ Triumph at Canadian Screen Awards". Variety, May 21, 2021.
22. Brent Furdyk (March 30, 2021). "Canadian Screen Awards Announces 2021 Film Nominations". ET Canada. Archived from the original on March 30, 2021.
23. "Night Raiders, Scarborough emerge victorious at 5th night of Canadian Screen Awards". CBC News, April 8, 2022.
24. Brent Furdyk, "2022 Canadian Screen Award Nominees Announced, ‘Sort Of’ & ‘Scarborough’ Lead The Pack". ET Canada, February 15, 2022.
25. Jenna Benchetrit, "Brother dominates with a dozen wins on third night of Canadian Screen Awards". CBC News, April 13, 2023.
26. Charles-Henri Ramond, "Écrans canadiens – Viking,13 nominations". Films du Québec, February 22, 2023.
27. Connie Thiessen, "Canadian Screen Awards winners: Cinematic Arts". Broadcast Dialogue, May 30, 2024.
28. "BlackBerry Leads CSA Nominations". Northern Stars, March 6, 2024.