Features from Ally Pankiw, Lulu Wei and Loveleen Kaur are among the Canadian winners from the 2023 Inside Out 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival.

The annual festival closed on June 4 after screening more than 100 titles from 30 countries, handing out a total of $32,000 in cash prizes.

Pankiw’s dramedy feature I Used to Be Funny (pictured) was voted the Audience Award winner for Best Narrative Feature, while Kaur’s music documentary Leilani’s Fortune won the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature. The audience prize for short film went to U.S. filmmaker Zeppelin Zeerip’s short doc Apayauq.

Wei’s documentary Supporting Our Selves was the big winner of the Canadian juried awards at the festival, picking up Best Canadian Feature. Karimah Zakia Issa won Emerging Canadian Artist for her short film Scaring Women at Night, while Beth Warrian’s Adore won Best Canadian Short.

The 2023 Canadian jury included Brooklyn, N.Y.-based filmmaker Odu Adamu, and Toronto-based filmmakers Dylan Glynn and Alice Wang.

Director Judith Schuyler of the Oneida Nation of the Thames won the Pitch, Please! competition, which includes a $5,000 production grant, for her project There is Light.

Argentinian director Juan Sebastián Torales’ Almamula won Best First Feature, with Canadian-Italian filmmaker Luis De Filippis’ Something You Said Last Night earning an honourable mention.

Rounding out the winners is Iranian-American actor Payman Maadi, who won the Leadership Circle Prize for Outstanding Performance for his work in the Swedish film Opponent (Motståndaren).

Both Leilani’s Fortune and Supporting Our Selves had their world premieres at the festival. Supporting Our Selves was the festival’s Centrepiece Gala, while Leilani’s Fortune premiered in the Icons program.

Photo courtesy of Barn 12