Away from its towering ski slopes and its laid-back parties, the Whistler Film Festival’s Borsos competition was this year a cinematic club for Ontario movies.

Bruce McDonald on Sunday swooped in to take the Borsos competition prize for The Husband, which bowed at TIFF and is set in Toronto.

McDonald grabbed the $15,000 prize for best Canadian feature with his Maxwell McCabe-Lokos and Sarah Allen-starrer about a Toronto ad agency copywriter struggling to raise his child while his wife serves a prison sentence for an affair with a 14-year- old student.

The Husband beat out stiff competition from Cas & Dylan, which saw director Vancouver-born Jason Priestley walking the red carpet in Whistler as a homecoming party, Daniel Roby’s Louis Cyr, Craig Goodwill’s Patch Town, Richie Mehta’s Siddharth and Uvanga, from directors Marie-Hélène Cousineau and Madeline Piujuq Ivalu.

In other prize-giving, Tatiana Maslany earned the best actor performance for her star-turn in Cas & Dylan, which was shot in Sudbury, Ontario.

Last year, Maslany took the same prize for her role in Kate Melville’s Picture Day, which also won the Borsos competition prize in 2012 and was shot in location in Toronto.

In other prize giving,  the Alliance of Women Film Journalists gave its best female-directed narrative feature trophy to The Animal Project, by Toronto director Ingrid Veninger.

Local directors found prizes in sidebar competitions, including the world documentary award going to Jingle Bell Rocks!, from Vancouver director Mitchell Kezin.

Marshall Axani picked up the Canadian ShortWork Award for Anxious Oswald Greene, while UBC’s Andrew Pollins earned the ShortWork Student Award for Backward Fall.

International directors recognized in Whistler included Lucy Walker picking up the best mountain culture film award for The Crash Reel, Whistler’s closing night film.