Less Than Kosher tops T.O. Webfest

Chateau Laurier and Top Dogs: Vengeance also picked up multiple awards.

Director Daniel AM Rosenberg’s Less Than Kosher was the big winner at the 2023 T.O. Webfest, taking home the festival’s Grand Prize, as well as three other awards.

The winners were announced Wednesday (Sept. 20) at a gala event in Toronto.

Less Than Kosher was created and written by Shaina Silver-Baird and Michael Goldlist, who are also executive producers. Toronto-based Filmcoop’s Emily Andrews and Laura Nordin are the producers.

The series won Best Web Series – Grand Prize, Best Comedy, Best Writing, and Best Actor in a Canadian Web Series for Silver-Baird.

Season two of the historic drama Chateau Laurier and Top Dogs: Vengeance won three awards each.

Chateau Laurier, produced by James Stewart, won Best Drama, Best Supporting Actor in a Canadian Web Series for Emmanuel Kabongo, and Best Costume Design for Melissa Bessey.

Top Dogs: Vengeance, produced by Vincent Chabot, won Best French Canadian Web Series, Best Editing for Samuel Brisebois, Samantha Labrecque and Pierre-Luc Miville, and Best Sound Design for Mark L Brock and Francois Del Fante.

Streams Flow from a River from Fae Pictures’ Shant Joshi, Abdul Malik and Lindsay Blair Goeldner won Best English Canadian series.

Meanwhile, Thyrone Tommy picked up the Best Directing award for Revenge of the Black Best Friend.

Other Canadian winners included The Drop (Best Toronto Web Series), Clickbait (Best of BC Web Series), Géolocaliser l’amour (Best LGBTQ+ Web Series), and Bruno Florin, who won the the Triple Threat Auteur prize for his doc Le Resto d’après.

Canadian series picking up awards in the genre categories include TVO Arts (Best Documentary), Drag Heals (Best Variety/Musical), Real Blackity Talk (Best Lifestyle), Gisele’s Mashup Adventures (Best Animated), Happy House of Frightenstein (Best Children’s Series), Esquisses (Sketches) (Best Youth Series), and Summer Camp: The Case of the Phantom Pooper (Best Unscripted Podcast).

Festival director Leah Rifkin said in a statement that “this year had an extremely competitive lineup and it just goes to show how many unique stories there are out there in short form.”

The full list of winners is available on the T.O. Webfest website.

Photo courtesy T.O. Webfest