Intercepted (pictured), from Ukrainian-Canadian filmmaker Oksana Karpovych, was named the winner of the National Feature Competition at this year’s Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM).

Produced by Montreal’s Les Films Cosmos, France’s Hutong Productions and Ukraine’s Moon Man, Intercepted juxtaposes the everyday life of Ukrainians with intercepted calls between Russian soldiers and their families following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The film is distributed by Les Films du 3 Mars.

The jury was comprised of writer, producer and director Félix Dufour-Laperrière (Archipelago); Hama Haruka, director at the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival; and Wouter Jansen, founder of the Austria-based film sales and festival strategy company Square Eyes.

“Without losing sight of its intentions, convictions and without losing its edge, this powerful film maintains a rare balance, both formally and thematically. It reveals the brutal consequences of an invasion, as well as the human and social dramas that in wartime are the lot of the majority,” said the jury in a statement. “Intercepted makes tangible the actual situation in Ukraine, while revealing something about contemporary Russia.”

The National Feature Competition’s special jury prize  went to Sylvain L’Espérance’s Archéologie de la lumière. The documentary, directed and produced by L’Espérance, explores Minganie, a municipality in the Côte-Nord region of Quebec.

Other Canadian winners at the festival include Ninan Auassat: We, the Children (National Film Board of Canada [NFB]) from Kim O’Bomsawin, which won the first edition of the Magnus Isacsson Award in an official competition. The film, which closed the festival, follows three groups of children each from different Indigenous nations over the course of more than six years.

The jury was made up of director, writer and cinematographer Helgi Piccinin (Champions); filmmakers Marie-France Laval (Marchés sur terre) Vincent Toi (I’ve Seen the Unicorn) and Jocelyne Clarke (Édith et Michel); Adèle Foglia, technical manager at Montreal’s Funambules Médias; and Ryan Akler-Bishop, programming coordinator at Montreal-based Cinema Politica.

Joseph Hillel’s At All Kosts (Quatre par Quatre Films) was named as a special mention for the award.

Lawrence Côté-Collins’ Billy won the Student Jury Award. The film, produced by Côté-Collins and Vuk Stojanovic, follows Côté-Collins as she seeks to understand and forgive her schizophrenic attacker Billy, imprisoned for an attack that left two people dead. The jury consisted of six students in post-secondary school across Quebec.

Wilfred Buck (NFB, Door Number 3 Productions) from Anishinaabe filmmaker Lisa Jackson won the Women Inmate Jury Award. The documentary, also distributed by NFB, tells the life story of the eponymous Cree Elder and his transformation into a revered educator. The jury was made up of six inmates from the Joliette Institution for Women.

Razan AlSalah won Best National Short or Medium-Length Film for the Palestine/Canada/Lebanon copro A Stone’s Throw and Noa Blanche Beschorner’s Canada/Germany copro Sous le soleil exactement won the competition’s special jury prize. The jury was made up of filmmakers Émilie Serri (Damascus Dreams), Shahab Mihandoust (Zagros) and Aylin Gökmen (Spirits and Rocks: An Azorean Myth).

The last Canadian winner was Manuel Orhy Pirón’s short film Emboîter leurs pas which won The Soirée de la Relève Radio-Canada Award. The award comes with a $10,000 grant from Radio-Canada meant to fund a future project.

The jury comprised of journalist Alexis De Lancer; winner of last year’s award Juliette Balthazard (Where Motion Has Not Yet Ceased); Julia Lauzon, director of documentaries at Radio-Canada; Karyne Tremblay, partnerships delegate at Radio-Canada; and Karine Dubois, producer at Montreal’s Picbois Productions.

Image courtesy of Les Films du 3 Mars