Filmmaker Clement Virgo’s coming-of-age drama Brother trounced the competition on the third night of the Canadian Screen Awards, landing a record 12 trophies, including Best Motion Picture.

The feature (Conquering Lion Pictures, Hawkeye Pictures), about two sons of Caribbean immigrants growing up in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough in the 1990s, was also atop the pack going into Thursday (April 13) night’s Cinematic Arts Awards ceremony with 14 nominations.

It ended up winning the most trophies for any film in Canadian Screen Awards history and the lion’s share of them at the ceremony. Its other honours included Achievement in Direction and Adapted Screenplay for Virgo, who wrote the story from Toronto-raised writer David Chariandy’s 2017 novel of the same name, as well as a lead acting nod for Lamar Johnson and a supporting performer nod for Aaron Pierre.

Brother was also recognized for its casting by Deirdre Bowen; sound mixing by Richard Penn, Joe Morrow, James Bastable and Jack Heeren; sound editing by Jane Tattersall, David McCallum, Paul Germann, Krystin Hunter, Kevin Banks, Sandra Fox and Kevin Jung; music – original score by Todor Kobakov; art direction/production design by Jason Clarke, John Kim and Richard Racicot; hair by Tremaine Thomas; and costume design by Hanna Puley.

Virgo — who told Playback last September it was his “most personal film to date” — also produced the film with Damon D’Oliveira under their Toronto-based prodco Conquering Lion Pictures, along with Aeschylus Poulos and Sonya Di Rienzo of Toronto’s Hawkeye Pictures. Executive producers are Aaron L. Gilbert and Steven Thibault of Bron, and Laurie May and Noah Segal of Elevation Pictures, the Canadian distributor. Bron Releasing manages international sales.

“David wrote a beautiful novel and it was a gift to us, it was a gift to me,” Virgo told reporters backstage after the wins. “It’s great that someone from Scarborough told the story — and now that story potentially could be around the world.”

Brother was made with the participation of Telefilm Canada, the Canada Media Fund, Ontario Creates and the Shaw Rocket Fund, in association with Bell Media’s Crave and CBC Films. Canada is “blessed” to have a film system “that is largely funded through government incentives, and we have to work to keep that preserved,” D’Oliveira told reporters backstage.

“South of the border, there’s a lot that bleeds over and that sort of impinges on Canadian culture, and we see that happening now with streaming platforms coming into Canada,” he said. “So to keep that Canadian voice, to keep the essence of Canadian content alive and ownership of Canadian content — that’s how we build our independent companies, that’s how we grow our industry, that’s how we hire interns, and that’s how we raise up younger directors by having that that leverage.”

Continued D’Oliveira: “We’re always aware that the system that exists right now, that allowed us to make Brother in the middle of a pandemic, is fragile — and we need to preserve that if we’re going to keep making films like Brother in this country, as opposed to knockoffs that look and sound like American content.”

The only other multiple winner at Thursday’s cinematic arts ceremony was David Cronenberg’s sci-fi thriller Crimes of the Future (Serendipity Point Films), which won two awards — Achievement in Make-Up (Alexandra Anger and Monica Pavez) and Achievement in Visual Effects (Peter McAuley, Kayden Anderson, Tom Turnbull and Caitlin Foster).

Written and directed by Cronenberg, Crimes of the Future was produced by Robert Lantos as a Canada/Greece copro with Athens-based Argonauts Productions, and distributed in Canada by Montreal and Toronto-based Sphere Films.

Anthony Shim’s Riceboy Sleeps (Lonesome Hero Productions, Kind Stranger Productions, A Lasting Dose Productions), which has stormed the awards circuit in recent months with wins including the Toronto Film Critics Association’s Rogers Best Canadian Film Award, landed a Canadian Screen Award for original screenplay for Shim.

Chandler Levack’s I Like Movies, produced by Lindsay Blair Goeldner, won Achievement in Editing for Simone Smith.

The John Dunning Best First Feature Film Award — which comes with a $25,000 cash prize — went to Charlotte Le Bon’s Falcon Lake (Metafilms, Onzecinq, Cinefrance Studios), based on Bastien Vivès’s graphic novel, while Stéphane Lafleur’s sci-fi comedy Viking (micro_scope) won Achievement in Cinematography for Sara Mishara.

Taking the Golden Screen Award for Feature Film, which goes to the Canadian project with the highest box office, was Miryam Bouchard’s 23 décembre (Two Days Before Christmas), produced by Guillaume Lespérance. This past January, distributor Immina Films said the holiday feature was the highest-grossing Quebec film since 2019’s Menteur (Cinémaginaire) with more than $2.1 million at the Canadian box office since its Nov. 25, 2022 release.

National Film Board of Canada (NFB) 2023 Oscar nominee The Flying Sailor won Best Animated Short for Wendy Tilby, Amanda Forbis and David Christensen.

Other winners included Aziz Zoromba’s Simo | س”وم , which is inspired by his experience as an Egyptian growing up in Canada, for Best Live Action Short Drama (Zoromba and Rosalie Chicoine Perreault); and Lindsay MacKay’s romantical musical drama The Swearing Jar (produced by Jane Loughman of Monkeys & Parrots, Kyle Bornais of Farpoint Films, and Tony Wosk of Middle Child Films) for Achievement in Music – Original Song for Kate Hewlett, who wrote the film.

Earlier in the day, at the Digital & Immersive Awards, CBC Gem’s Revenge of the Black Best Friend (iThentic) and web series Tokens (A Token Entertainment Company) took two trophies apiece.

Revenge of the Black Best Friend had nine nominations — the highest of the digital media series — and walked away with Best Web Program or Series, Fiction for creator Amanda Parris, Jonas Diamond, Julian De Zotti, Motion and Mercedes Grundy; and Best Lead Performance, Web Program or Series for Oluniké Adeliyi.

Tokens took Best Direction, Web Program or Series for creator Winnifred Jong and Best Supporting Performance, Web Program or Series for Sedina Fiati. The Roku Channel acquired worldwide rights to seasons one and two of the short-form satirical comedy, produced by Jong and Trinni Franke, last December.

Best Writing, Web Program or Series went to Kent Staines and Emily Weedon for the Chateau Laurier (Geneva Film) episode “An Unfortunate Turn of Events.”

Winning Best Video Game was Sarah Northway for I Was A Teenage Exocolonist (Northway Games).

The victors for Best Immersive Experience were Lou (UNLTDVR) in the non-fiction category (Martine Asselin, Annick Daigneault, Sébastien Gros and John Hamilton) and the NFB’s The Orchid and the Bee in the fiction category (Frances Adair Mckenzie, Jelena Popović and Michael Fukushima).

The 11th annual Canadian Screen Awards, put on by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television, continue tonight (April 14) with the Comedic & Dramatic Arts Awards. The final show will be a pre-recorded telecast hosted by Samantha Bee on Sunday (April 16) on CBC.

Photo credit: George Pimentel Photography