The Rogers Best Canadian Film Award was presented to Riceboy Sleeps as the winner; the directors of the runners-up each received $5,000 from Rogers Communications. Comedian and TV personality Rick Mercer presented the $10,000 Stella Artois Jay Scott Prize for an emerging artist to filmmaker Carol Nguyen; Nguyen's short films, which are drawn from her life and Vietnamese-Canadian culture, have played at more than 80 film festivals. In its mission to recognize new voices in film criticism, the TFCA gave Michelle Krasovitski the fourth annual Telefilm Canada Emerging Critic Award, presented by actress Maitreyi Ramakrishnan. Krasovitski is a daughter of Soviet-era Ukrainian immigrants who taught her to appreciate a culture of uncensored film; the award comes with a prize of $1,000. Steve Gravestock was named as the recipient of this year's Company 3 TFCA Luminary Award; that award comes with a pay-it-forward grant of $50,000 in production services to a filmmaker of the recipient's choice. Gravestock chose producer/actor Hugh Gibson and writer/director Frieda Luk; TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey, and Company 3 VP and GM James Fraser presented the award to the recently retired Gravestock.[6]
Winners
Winners are listed first and in bold, followed by the runners-up.
"To Iranian filmmakers Jafar Panahi, Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa Al-Ahmad, who are currently in jail in Iran yet continue to make subtle movies that talk about life in their country, in spite of threats and restrictions from the regime. We stand in solidarity with them and add our voices to the international arts community calling for their release."[1][9][10][11]