The documentaries To Kill a Tiger by Nisha Pahuja and Black Ice by Hubert Davis, the immigration drama Riceboy Sleeps by Anthony Shim, and Canada/Switzerland copro Something You Said Last Night by Luis De Filippis were among the Canadian features honoured at the 47th Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

Produced by Cornelia Principe and Pahuja for Notice Pictures, and David Oppenheim for the National Film Board of Canada, To Kill a Tiger (pictured) won the $10,000 Amplify Voices Award for Best Canadian Feature Film at an awards ceremony on Sunday (Sept. 18), the final day of TIFF.

In her acceptance speech, Pahuja paid tribute to the Indian father in the film, who fights for justice after the sexual assault of his 13-year-old daughter. “I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve described To Kill a Tiger as my attempt to amplify Ranjit’s voice and the voice of his daughter, so this couldn’t be more aptly named.”

Riceboy Sleeps beat out nine other films in the competitive $20,000 Platform Prize program in what the jury said was a unanimous choice “for its deeply moving story and precisely-observed characters as they navigate racism, dislocation, family, and love.” Vancouver-based writer-director Shim, who loosely based his sophomore feature on his own experience as a Korean immigrant with his mother in Canada, produced under his Lonesome Heroes Productions banner along with producers Rebecca Steele and Bryan Demore. The film is distributed by Game Theory Films in Canada, while Sphere Films International is handling international sales.

“I’ve been in this industry for about 20 years now and this is the first thing I’ve ever won,” Shim said. “Although I don’t make movies for awards or this type of overwhelming attention, it’s pretty sweet. And it’s incredibly encouraging to keep going and to keep making films when it feels impossible most times, it feels discouraging and deflating most times. It’s moments like this and weeks like this that gives me strength and hope and courage to keep telling the best stories that I can, that I feel like will be of some service to our challenging society that we live in today.”

Black Ice — produced by Uninterrupted Canada in partnership with DreamCrew Entertainment, The SpringHill Company and Bell Media — nabbed the People’s Choice Documentary Award, which also had a Canadian second runner-up: 752 Is Not A Number by Babak Payami. Black Ice tells the history of Black hockey players and will premiere exclusively to Canadian viewers on Bell Media’s TSN, Crave, and CTV platforms. Elevation handles theatrical distribution for the doc, produced by Vinay Virmani, with Drake and Adele “Future” Nur serving as executive producers.

Taking the $10,000 Shawn Mendes Foundation Changemaker Award was Something You Said Last Night, about a 20-something aspiring trans writer who goes on vacation with her family. De Filippis wrote and directed the film, which was produced by Jessica Adams’ JA Productions and Switzerland’s Cinédokké. The other producers are Adams and De Filippis, alongside Michael Graf, Harry Cherniak, Rhea Plangg, and Michela Pini. The feature, which was part of the first-ever Trans Filmmakers Summit x TIFF during the festival, is “honest, immersive, and intensely relatable,” said TIFF’s Next Wave Committee.

“I just want to say to the next generation of filmmakers: I know this industry can be big and scary, it can look that way — well, actually, it is that way — but if I have one piece of advice, it is to build a little family,” said De Filippis. “Find the people who celebrate you, find the people who you see yourself in and create with them. Just keep creating over and over and over again.”

Steven Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical The Fabelmans took the main People’s Choice prize, which is considered a bellwether for Academy Awards success, while the U.S. drama Women Talking by Toronto filmmaker Sarah Polley (Plan B Entertainment, Hear/Say Productions) was first runner-up and Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery was second runner-up.

Getting a special mention for Best Canadian Feature Film was Viking by Stéphane Lafleur, produced by Luc Déry and Kim McCraw of micro_scope, with Les Films Opale as the Canadian distributor.

Other Canadian films honoured at the ceremony included Simo by Aziz Zoromba, which won the $10,000 IMDbPro Short Cuts Award for Best Canadian Film. The jury praised the immigrant family story for having “convincing, natural performances and tight direction.” Getting an honourable mention for best Canadian short was Same Old by director Lloyd Lee Choi.

The $10,000 IMDbPro Short Cuts Share Her Journey Award went to the Canadian title Nanitic by Carol Nguyen. Under the Amplify Voices Award section, Canadian documentary Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry It On (Eagle Vision, White Pine Pictures, Paquin Entertainment) by Madison Thomas got a special mention for best feature from an Emerging BIPOC Filmmaker.

The two international films winning $10,000 Amplify Voices Awards were: Leonor Will Never Die by Martika Ramirez Escobar of the Philippines, and While We Watched by Vinay Shukla of the U.K.

The People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award winner was Weird: The Al Yankovic Story by Eric Appel.

Other international winners included France/Mongolia title Snow in September by Lkhagvadulam (Dulmaa) Purev-Ochir, which won the IMDbPro Short Cuts Award for Best Film.

Australia’s Sweet As by Jub Clerc won the NETPAC Award, while the FIPRESCI went to Basil Khalil’s Palestine/U.K. title A Gaza Weekend.

Image courtesy of TIFF