VANCOUVER — For the first time ever, the Vancouver International Film Festival’s box office hit $1 million at the end of it’s 16-day cinematic marathon, which on Friday handed out closing night awards to enviro-minded titles including the U.K.’s Garbage Warrior and Quebec’s Up the Yangtze.

‘Each year it’s more and more of a tightrope walk,’ said Alan Franey, festival director. ‘We go in thinking tides change, people won’t stand in line, they want the creature comforts of home theaters. It is most rewarding to know that when we announced the films this year as being one of our strongest programs ever, audience feedback confirmed that it was.’

The environment was a character in many of this year’s films. The first Kyoto Planet Climate for Change award of $25,0000 went to The Planet, by Swedish directors Michael Stenberg, Johan Soderberg and Linus Torell, who combined footage from around and above the earth symbolizing man-made degradation of the environment.

‘Artistic mastery, information content, power to mobilize… The Planet got it all and well deserves now to be seen by a very large audience around the world,’ said juror Gerard Ungerman.

The award for most popular international nonfiction film went to Garbage Warrior, U.K. director Oliver Hodge’s documentary about architect Mike Reynolds and his ecological buildings — a.k.a. ‘earthships.’ The film garnered standing ovations, maybe in part because Vancouver has been hit by a garbage strike.

Up the Yangtze, by Quebec director Yung Chang, picked up the NFB’s best Canadian documentary for his film on the controversial Three Gorges Dam project in China, and sold-out three screenings. The film is rumored to be heading for a theatrical release.

Persepolis, the animated coming-of-age story about an Iranian girl growing up during the Islamic Revolution, directed by Marjane Satrap of Iran and Vincent Paronnaud of France, was awarded most popular international film.

First-time filmmaker and Vancouverite Gwen Haworth hit a double, getting most popular Canadian film and the artistic merit award from Women in Film & Television for She’s A Boy I Knew, which tells the story of the filmmaker’s male-to-female gender transition. Director Carl Bessai took the Western Canada feature film award for his drama Normal.