Montreal: Lee Tamahori’s New Zealand drama Once Were Warriors was the big winner at this year’s Montreal World Film Festival, taking the Grand Prix des Ameriques for best feature film in official competition, the Air Canada People’s Choice Award for most popular film in the festival and the Ecumenical Prize.

A record 300,000 film fans attended the Aug. 25 to Sept. 5 event.

Once Were Warriors, distributed by Malofilm Distribution, is setting all-time attendance records in theaters in New Zealand and appears headed for a spectacular North American box office career. Set in an impoverished Maori housing development in Auckland, the film is an emotion-laden tale of domestic violence and racism and a mother’s heroic resistance.

Malofilm will release the film in its original and French-language versions in early January, in line with the American release by the u.s. distributor, Fine Line.

Tamahori and the film’s star, Rena Owen, winner of the wff’s best actress award, were on hand to receive their prizes at the festival’s closing night gala at Place des Arts.

The International Critics Award (official competition) went to Andre Forcier’s Le Vent du Wyoming, also named the best Canadian film of the festival.

Another Canadian production, Claude Massot’s Kabloonak, won the jury’s technical award.

This year’s festival, with 19 films in competition and 300 films from 60 countries, is generally viewed as the most successful in many years.

Other 1994 wff award winners were:

Special Grand Jury Prize and Best Director, Cancion de Cuna, Jose Luis Garci (Spain); International Critics Prize (open), The Trouble We’ve Seen, Marcel Ophuis (France/ Germany); Prix de Montreal, Everynight, Everynight, Alkinos Tsilimidos (Australia); Best Artistic Contribution (Photography), Kabloonak, Jacques Loiseleux and Francois Protat; Best Actress (tie) Owen and Helena Bergstrom in The Last Dance (Sweden); Best Actor, Alan Rickman, Mesmer (u.k./ Canada/Germany); Best Screenplay, The Sum of Us, Kevin Dowling (Australia); and Best Short Film, Scratch Ticket, John Fawcett (Canada)

The National Film Board Norman McLaren Award for Best Film at the 25th Canadian Student Film Festival went to The Chain Letter, Lindsey Polland, Emily Carr College of Art and Design, Vancouver.