Domestic features Babysitter and How To Get Your Parents To Divorce are among the big winners of the 2023 Canadian Film Fest.

The hybrid festival, which ran in-person at Scotiabank Theatre in Toronto and virtually via Super Channel Fuse, wrapped on Saturday (April 1), with Canada/France copro Babysitter (pictured) winning Best Feature and Best Set Design. The film is directed by Monia Chokri and written by Catherine Léger, based on her play of the same name, and served as the opening feature for the film festival.

Babysitter is produced by Montreal’s Amérique Film and France’s Phase 4 Productions, with Maison 4:3 handling distribution. It is nominated for five Canadian Screen Awards, including Best Motion Picture.

The festival’s other double award winner for the year is the Sandrine Brodeur-Desrosiers feature How To Get Your Parents To Divorce, which won both of the Feature Film Jury Awards: Best Screenplay for Brodeur-Desrosiers and Maryse Latendresse, and Best Youth Ensemble for cast members Charlotte St-Martin, Liam Patenaude, Charlie Fortier, Louka Amadeo Bélanger-Leos, and Simone Laperle.

The French-language comedy is produced by Richard Lalonde, and distributed by h264 Distribution.

The jury included Barb Godfrey, owner of talent agency The Arthur Agency, director Faran Moradi, actor-producer-screenwriter Jonas Chernick, and producer Stephanie Sonny Hooker.

The festival’s audience award went to queer drama Polarized, written, directed and coproduced by Shamim Sarif. It is produced by Hanan Kattan and Juliette Hagopian, with Photon Films handling distribution in Canada.

Additional winners include the documentary Bloom by Fanie Pelletier, winning the William F. White (WFW) Reel Canadian Indie Award, which comes with $5,000 worth of equipment rentals from WFW; Adrian Murray won DGC Ontario’s Best Director award for the film Retrograde; Best Short Film went to Joy Webster’s Menace, while Best Short Film Producer went to Shyam Valera for Desi Standard Time Travel.

The festival also handed out six juried awards for short films. Quiet Minds Silent Streets won Best Documentary, The Untouchable won Best Ensemble, Corvine won Outstanding Animation, and There Was Nothing won Best Cinematography. The Best Performance award went to Eric Peterson for Junior’s Giant and Breakout Performance went to Cassandra Paige for No Bedroom.

The short film jury included producer Emily Andrews, and actors Michelle McLeod (Women Talking) and Rodrigo Fernandez-Stoll (BlackBerry).

Image courtesy of Maison 4:3