My Winnipeg director Guy Maddin and producer Jody Shapiro accepted the first $10,000 cash prize for best Canadian feature, as voted by the Toronto Film Critics Association, on Tuesday night for their hallucinatory black-and-white love letter to the helmer’s beloved Manitoba hometown.

‘I’m tickled to win,’ said Maddin. ‘For years I’ve said it doesn’t matter if you win awards, but it is much better to win… especially with something you can take to the bank.’ Maddin thanked sponsor Rogers Communications for the cash prize and his distributor Maximum Films, among others.

The inaugural award was presented to the duo by Sarah Polley at a swanky-yet-intimate gala dinner at a downtown restaurant, a radical departure from the ‘hole in the wall’ venues that the TFCA has haunted in previous years, per its new president Brian D. Johnson.

The Maclean’s film critic took the honorary TFCA position on the condition that the association ‘ramp up the awards’ to create an event he describes as ‘the Giller meets the Golden Globes, on a Toronto scale,’ in order to celebrate Canadian talent. ‘This event did not exist two months ago,’ said Johnson, noting that PR firm Stephenson/Daniels was hired to do ‘their voodoo’ and pull off a resounding success in 59 days flat.

A good time was had by all 110 guests at the awards supper — a who’s who of Canadian cinema and culture. On hand to fete Canadian moviemakers were Don McKellar, Patricia Rozema, Sturla Gunnarsson, Atom Egoyan and producers Daniel Iron and Robert Lantos, as well as TIFF chief Piers Handling, Ontario’s Minister of Culture Aileen Carroll, Telefilm Canada’s exec director Wayne Clarkson, and Ontario Media Development Corporation chair Kevin Shea. Nominated directors Stéphane Lafleur (Continental, A Film Without Guns) and Yung Chang (Up the Yangtze) were also at the upscale affair.

Introducing himself as ‘a recovering critic’ emcee, Cameron Bailey (a former writer for Toronto’s Now Magazine and current TIFF co-director) set the tone for the evening when he told the lively crowd that the event ‘qualifies as one of those galas that Stephen Harper was talking about,’ referring to the prime minister’s now-infamous jab at awards galas. ‘Let the self-congratulations begin,’ he exclaimed.

When Johnson took over the mic he joked that ‘it’s so nice to see a film critic who’s actually made something of himself,’ yet the seriousness was not lost on the culture crowd when he suggested everyone should celebrate now as, ‘we will remember these days when we could still afford to have a culture.’

Established in 1997, the TFCA is comprised of Toronto-based journalists and broadcasters who specialize in film criticism and commentary. All major dailies, weeklies and a variety of other print and electronic outlets are represented.