Jeff Barnaby’s Rhymes for Young Ghouls and Jason James’ That Burning Feeling have split the Best Canadian First Feature prize at this year’s Vancouver International Film Festival.

Barnaby’s Rhymes, which had its world premiere at TIFF, follows the after-effects of trauma inflicted by residential schools on Canada’s First Nations population. James’ comedy, That Burning Feeling, follows a womanizing yuppie who, after he is struck with an illness as the result of his promiscuity, begins to look at his life on new terms.

Mathieu Arsenault received the award for most promising director of a Canadian short film, while Chloe Robichaud received the WIFTV artistic merit award for Sarah préfère la course (Sarah Prefers to Run).

And in the audience choice awards, Jason DaSilva’s When I Walk won as most popular Canadian documentary, while Tyla Roscovich’s Salmon Confidential took the prize for most popular Canadian environmental doc. And Ben Ratner’s Down River took top honours for most popular Canadian feature film.

In other audience awards-giving, Koreeda Hirokazu’s Like Father, Like Son won the people’s choice award, and Haifaa Al Mansour’s Wadjda was named most popular first feature.

The awards were handed out on Sat. Oct. 12 as the festival wrapped.

Elsewhere, festival director Alan Franey announced that he would be stepping down from his role after 26 years to focus on programming, and balancing other pursuits. After thanking VIFF’s senior staff and board on working on the executive transition over the past few years, Franey underlined the importance of maintaining VIFF’s mandate to support filmmakers and showcase world cinema to audiences.

“We live in a digital world in which quality is not always easily gleaned from quantity. Many directions for VIFF may be considered. My hope is that we will keep our eyes focused on our long-standing mandate to value cinema as an art form and as a bridge between peoples. This will surely serve us well in the future,” Franey said in a statement.