Audiences fete Drive Back Home, Tragically Hip docuseries at CIFF

Drive Back Home took home the Audience Award for Canadian Narrative Feature, while The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal earned the overall top score.

Canadian feature Drive Back Home and the Prime Video series The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal were favoured by audiences at the 25th Calgary International Film Festival (CIFF).

Director and producer Mike Downie’s The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal won the Audience Award for overall top score. The four-part documentary series covering the history of the iconic band is produced by Downie, Kim Creelman, Bryn Hughes, Dave Wells and Kalin Moon along with former The Tragically Hip band members Rob Baker, Johnny Fay, Paul Langlois and Gord Sinclair.

The series, which already took home the People’s Choice Award at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, debuted on Prime Video on Sept. 5.

Michael Clowater’s Drive Back Home took home the Audience Choice Award for Canadian Narrative Feature.

Produced by Mason Films and Woods Entertainment, the drama focuses on a small-town plumber from rural New Brunswick who must drive his beat-up work truck 1,000 miles to Toronto to get his estranged, gay brother out of jail. The film stars Scottish actor Alan Cumming and is distributed by Game Theory Films.

Other Canadian winners include Gillian McKercher’s sophomore film Lucky Star (Kino Sum Productions, Notable Content), which won the Audience Award for an Alberta feature after making its world premiere at CIFF. The family drama (pictured) focuses on fatherly love, deceit and redemption amid a slice of life of the Chinese-Prairie diaspora, and is also distributed by Game Theory Films. McKercher’s first feature, Circle of Steel, won an Audience Award at CIFF 2018.

Cree writer-director Tasha Hubbard’s Singing Back the Buffalo won the Audience Award for Canadian documentary feature. Produced by Buffalo Song Productions and Downstream Documentary Productions, the film follows Indigenous communities who are aiding the return of buffalo herds to the North American plains they once defined.

The Telus original Iniskim: Return of the Buffalo, which follows puppeteers learning about Plains Indians’ ways of knowing, won the Audience Award for best Alberta short. The film was directed by Leanne Allison and Pete Balkwill with funding from the Canada Council for the Arts – New Chapter and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts 25th Commemorative Arts Project.

Lowell Dean’s horror film Dark Match won the late shift Audience Award. The film, shot and produced in Alberta from Dept. 9 Studios, depicts a small-time wrestling company who accepts a gig in a rural town only to learn too late the community is run by a mysterious cult leader. Dark Match had its world premiere at Fantasia International Film Festival earlier this year.

Alfonso Maorana’s Goddess of Slide: The Forgotten Story of Ellen McIlwaine took home the Audience Choice Award for music on screen. Soul Flicker Films’ feature documentary tells the story of the forgotten Canadian musician landing in Greenwich Village and fighting to play the slide guitar while opening for several blues legends.

The festival wrapped up its 25th edition on Sept. 29.

Image courtesy of Game Theory Films