Montreal: Ulu Grosbard’s u.s./France coproduction Georgia starring Jennifer Jason Leigh was voted this year’s winner of the Grand Prix des Ameriques, best film in competition at the 19th edition of the Montreal World Film Festival.

Jason Leigh, who coproduced the movie, also won the best actress award for her performance in Georgia, a story of rival sisters in the music industry scripted by the actress’ mother, Barbara Turner.

Film critics with the daily press provided extensive reviews of all competition films. And while the critics generally accepted the choice of Georgia as top film, their other choices seemed completely out of step with the sensibilities of the wff jury.

Another film in competition took two awards, Chinese director Xie Fei’s A Mongolian Tale. Fei’s film was a co-winner in the best director category and received an honorable mention for its musical track.

Other prizes went to Fabrizio Bentivoglio for best actor in the Italian film Un Eroe Borghese; Goran Markovic, named co-winner in the best director category for the Bulgaria/France feature Burlesque Tragedy, and Shemi Zarhin, winner of the best screenplay award for the Israeli film Passover Fever.

Special Jury prizes were handed out to the Russian film A Moslem from director Vladimir Khotinenko and to actress/director Liv Ullmann for her ‘exceptional contribution’ to the film industry.

Robert Menard’s L’enfant d’eau won the public’s vote as best Canadian film.

The Air Canada Award for the festival’s most popular film went to Don’t Die Without Telling Me You’re Going, an Argentinean film from director Eliseo Subiela.

Paul Driessen won the top short film prize for the National Film Board animated short The End of the World in Four Seasons, based on the Vivaldi symphony. The best first feature prize was shared by Belgian director Frank van Passel for Manneken Pis and Norwegian director Marius Holst for Cross My Heart and Hope to Die.

The festival’s Ecumenical Jury prize was won by Japanese director Kei Kumai’s for Deep River.

Media highlights at this year’s event included two satellite press conferences with grouchy French film director Jean-Luc Godard, and a very touching interview with Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni and company, direct from the Venice festival.

wff market director Gilles Beriault says this year’s market was more active than last year’s, with an increase of 10% in registered buyers.

He says the Quebec location promotion consortium, Initiative Quebec, held a popular series of nightly receptions for foreign guests, and new online computer and voice mail systems greatly enhanced communications.

This year, the festival invited 350 buyers to the market, a huge hike over previous years.

Among active foreign delegations named by Beriault, Miramax from the u.s., Danby Films, sbs-tv, Filmways Multimedia from Australia, Roissy Films, Pyramid, Mercure and Unifrance from France, Electric Picture from the u.k., rai from Italy, Time Medienvertriebs from Germany, and Sogepaq, a Spanish company making its first visit to Montreal.

As for improvements, Beriault says he’d like to see more multimedia producers at future markets and a more developed market registry at the wff’s Internet site.

Beriault says the wff market will continue to key on commercial product from Europe and Asia.

Others echoed this year’s positive assessment.

‘It certainly seemed more active, busier,’ says Kevin Tierney, president of Distribution La Fete. ‘There were a lot more people. I don’t know how many deals were finalized, but I saw a lot of buyers here I hadn’t seen in a while. Gilles (Beriault) did a good job. We had good interest from Germany for a whole bunch of new things including Silencing the Guns.’