M att Johnson’s BlackBerry led the winners of the Vancouver Film Critics Circle (VFCC) Awards, including Best Picture in the Canadian film category.

The awards, which recognize international and Canadian achievements in film, took place Monday (Feb. 12) at the VIFF Centre in Vancouver.

BlackBerry (Rhombus Media, Zapruder Films; pictured) – a film about the rise and fall of Research in Motion, the Canadian company that invented the BlackBerry mobile phone – won five awards in total. The other four honours were Best Director for Johnson; Best Screenplay for Johnson and Matthew Miller; Best Male Actor for Jay Baruchel; and Best Supporting Male Actor for Glenn Howerton.

Meredith Hama-Brown’s Seagrass (Experimental Forest Films, Ceroma Films) followed with three awards, including the CMPA-BC Best BC Film Award, the DGC-BC Best BC Director Award for Hama-Brown, and Best Supporting Female Actor for Nyha Huang Breitkreuz.

Ariana Louis-Seize’s Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (Art et essai) picked up two awards: Telefilm Canada One to Watch Award for Louis-Seize, which comes with a $1,000 cash prize, and Best Female Actor for Sara Montpetit.

The Oscar-nominated Canadian doc To Kill a Tiger, directed by Nisha Pahuja, won Best Documentary in the VFCC international category.

Rounding out the Canadian category winners is Satan Wants You (Nootka St., Grand Scheme), directed by Steve J. Adams and Sean Horlor, which won Best Documentary.

In the international categories, Justine Triet’s French thriller Anatomy of a Fall won Best Picture. The film tied with Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer and Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers for the most awards, each winning two apiece.

Oppenheimer won Best Director for Nolan and Best Supporting Male Actor for Robert Downey Jr.; The Holdovers won Best Male Actor for Paul Giamatti and Best Supporting Female Actor for Da’Vine Joy Randolph; and Anatomy of a Fall‘s second win went to Sandra Hüller for Best Female Actor.

Rounding out the winners was Barbie, with director Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach winning for Best Screenplay, and Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest for Best International Film in a Non-English Language.

Image courtesy of Elevation Pictures