WHISTLER, BC — Quebec filmmaker Jim Donovan and his 3 Seasons picked up the $15,000 Borsos Award for best new Canadian feature film on Sunday at the close of the Whistler Film Festival.

The film follows two couples — played by Carinne Leduc, Caroline Néron, Romano Orzari and Shawn Baichoo — dealing with an unexpected pregnancy and a distraught father (Frank Schorpion) bent on revenge.

Six films competed for the Borsos prize, which was juried by actor Donald Sutherland and award-winning directors Sturla Gunnarsson and Patricia Rozema.

Other awards handed out as the eighth annual Whistler festival came to a close included the $5,000 best documentary prize, which went to New Zealand film The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins, directed by Pietra Brettkelly.

The $1,000 best short film award winner is Next Floor, directed by Montreal’s Denis Villeneuve; and the $500 best mountain culture film recipient is Journey of a Red Fridge, directed by Serbian filmmakers Lucian Muntean and Natasa Stankovic. The film tells the story of a 17-year-old boy’s extraordinary journey through the Himalayan Mountains.

The $500 awards for best actor and best actress in the Borsos competition went to Clark Johnson of Nurse.Fighter.Boy and Leduc of 3 Seasons.

WFF audiences chose Montreal filmmaker Brett Gaylor’s edgy documentary on Internet copyright, RiP: A remix manifesto, as the winner of the people’s choice award.

Apologies, a project in development with writer/director Mitch Miyagawa of Whitehorse, YK and producer Josh Miller of Edmonton, won the Pitch Fest West competition, which comes with $2,000 from the National Film Board, and also took the Pitch Fest audience choice award.

The documentary will look at the multiple apologies Miyagawa’s family, who are of Japanese/Chinese and aboriginal descent, have received from the federal government.

Writer/director Steven Denault won the Motion Picture Production Industry Association of B.C.’s Short Film Award for The Gray Matter. The prize consists of $15,000 cash plus in-kind production services for a short film project.