Steve J. Adams and Sean Horlor’s documentary Satan Wants You has won Fantasia International Film Festival’s inaugural Director’s Guild of Canada (DGC) Audience Award for Best Canadian Feature.

The festival announced its audience award winners on Monday (Aug. 14), with several Canadian films among the lauded titles.

Satan Wants You (pictured) explores the so-called “satanic panic” of the 1980s through Michelle Smith’s book Michelle Remembers. The award comes with a cash prize of $2,500 from the DGC, a sponsor for the Septentrion Shadows section of the Montreal festival, according to a news release.

The doc made its world premiere at the South by Southwest Film and TV Festival earlier this year. Adams and Horlor’s Vancouver-based Nootka St. is the majority producer of the film. Michael Grand’s Grand Scheme banner is also a producer, with independent producer Melissa James.

In the Best Canadian Feature category, Jenn Wexler’s 1970s-set horror The Sacrifice Game won gold, followed by Jacqueline Castel’s My Animal earning silver, and Ryan Ward’s Daughter of the Sun with bronze.

The Best Canadian Short gold winner was Tamara Scherbak’s White Noise, with Aaron Peacock’s Colin Carvey’s Long Halloween and Abby Falvo’s *666 tying for silver, and Kassy Gascho’s #BossBabe and Sean Wainsteim’s Demon Box tying for bronze.

The Sacrifice Game is directed by Wexler, who is a co-writer with Sean Redlitz. Wexler is also a producer on the film alongside Montreal-based Philip Kalin-Hajdu, Albert I. Melamed, Heather Buckley and Todd Slater.

Psychological thriller White Noise, which also won the Silver Mels Prize for Best Film in the Les Fantastiques Week-ends du Cinéma Québécois programme of Fantasia, is based on a screenplay by Scherbak and Christina Saliba. It is produced by Saliba and executive produced by Anne-Marie Gélinas and will stream on Crave in winter 2024.

Meanwhile, François Simard, Anouk Whissell, Yoann-Karl Whissell’s We Are Zombies won gold in the Best Quebec Feature category, followed by Pascal Plante’s Red Rooms winning silver and Pier-Philippe Chevigny’s Richelieu earning bronze. Vic Caputo’s Sacred Premonitions of the Celestial Light took home the Best Quebec Short top prize.

Image courtesy of the Fantasia International Film Festival