Canadian Film Fest’s opening film Doubles (pictured) led the winners for the 2024 edition of the Toronto-based festival.

Doubles, written and directed by Ian Harnarine, picked up three awards overall, including the festival’s people’s choice award (titled the People’s Pick for Best Flick).

The feature also won the Reel Canadian Indie Award, which recognizes a film that “exemplifies the spirit of indie filmmaking,” and Best Supporting Actor for Errol Sitahal in the Feature Film Jury Awards.

Doubles is produced by Mark Sirju. It is based on the short film Doubles with Slight Pepper, and follows a Trinidadian street vendor who must decide if he wants to save his estranged father’s life.

The award for Best Feature went to Kim Albright’s With Love and a Major Organ ( Common Knowledge Films). Based on the play from Julia Lederer, the film is set in a world where people can literally give away their hearts.

The DGC Ontario Best Director award was given to Anna Fahr for the feature Valley of Exile (Morning Bird Pictures, Placeless Films).

Eva Thomas’s Redlights won Best Short Film, with Kiarash Dadgar winning Best Short Film Producer for The Steak. Charles Dionne won Best Writing For a Short Film for Virga.

Other winners in the Feature Film Jury Awards include Jonas Chernick and Diana Frances for The Burning Season (Banana-Moon Sky Films, Good Movies), while Taylor Olson won Best Performance for Look at Me (which he also wrote, directed and produced).

The winners of the Short Film Jury Awards include Best Comedy Performance for Fateema Al-Hamaydeh Miller’s EITR; Best Comedy Short for Annie-Claude Caron and Danick Audet’s Dead Cat; Best Animation Short for Thao Lam and Kjell Boersma’s Boat People; Best Short Documentary for Yvonne Sung’s Hello Anson; and Best Dramatic Performance for Gauri Prasad in Asis Sethi’s Rock the Cradle.

The feature film jury for 2024 was Adrian Murray, Navin Ramaswaran, Cory Bowles and Sarah Booth. The short film jury included Nathalie Younglai, Patrick Yang and Madeline Rose.

Photo by Yvano Antonio