Showing no signs of losing its awards and box office momentum, Philippe Falardeau’s Monsieur Lazhar (pictured) was named the best Canadian film at the Toronto Film Critics Association gala Tuesday night.

Lazhar, which is also Canada’s contender for the Oscar Foreign-Language film shortlist, was feted at the Jan. 10 event, which saw industry celebs such as director David Cronenberg, actress Sarah Gadon, filmmakers Bruce McDonald and Don McKellar and The Adventures of Tintin screenwriter Joe Cornish in attendance.

The Rogers Best Canadian Film Award also came with a $15,000 prize. Also vying for the prize were Jean Marc Vallee’s Cafe de flore and Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method (which opens wide in Canada this week).

Also announced were the winners of the 2011 Deluxe Student Film Award to York University student Janice Lee for her short film Faraway, earning Lee $5000 in post-production services from Deluxe Toronto and the TFCA’s $5000 Jay Scott Prize went to Toronto filmmaker Ingrid Veninger.

Also honoured during the evening’s festivities was Cinepix founder John Dunning with the Clyde Gilmour award, a nod that was accepted posthumously by his son, John Dunning.

For more info on the prizes awarded by the TCFA, see here.

Launched four years ago, the TFCA event celebrates Canadian and international filmmaking achievements, serving as both a nod to the best of the year past and an opportunity to shine a spotlight on film in Canada, explains TFCA president and Maclean‘s film critic Brian D. Johnson.

“It’s an event that brings together all aspects of the industry: Hollywood studios, Canadian distributors, exhibitors, directors, actors – it’s all inclusive in that sense. It’s also our annual truce between the critics and the film industry,” he says with a laugh.

The event has enjoyed a rapid rise in profile since it started formally four years ago, and much more informally as a dinner party among friends when the association first started in 1997. With the amount of sponsorship they’ve been able to garner for this year’s event, Johnson says he’d like to see it become one of the premiere film events in Canada.

“Facetiously I like to say it’s the Giller meets the Golden Globes but more fun than the Giller and less corrupt than the Golden Globes – in fact, not corrupt at all!” he jokes.

“As we get more sponsors, we’ll funnel it into the event and into the prize money. I can see the prize money increasing will be increasing over the years – I’d like to get the point on where we have the most lucrative Canadian film prize in the country.”