The Toronto Film Critics Association (TFCA) has awarded its annual Canadian film prizes to Matthew Rankin’s surrealist comedy Universal Language and the documentary Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story from Michael Mabbott and Lucah Rosenberg-Lee.

Universal Language (Metafilms, Maison 4:3) took the Rogers Best Canadian Film Award, while Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story (Banger Films, NFB) was honoured with the Rogers Best Canadian Documentary Award. Each award comes with a $50,000 cash prize.

Universal Language is directed by Rankin, produced by Sylvain Corbeil, and written by Rankin, Pirouz Nemati and Ila Firouzabadi. The French- and Farsi-language film is set in a fictional city framed by the filmmakers as “somewhere between Tehran and Winnipeg”, and follows three seemingly unconnected stories. Rankin and Nemati also star in the film, along with Mani Soleymanlou (Avant le crash), Danielle Fichaud (Aline) and newcomers Rojina Esmaeili, Saba Vahedyousefi and Sobhan Javadi.

Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story is helmed by Mabbott and Rosenberg-Lee, and produced by Amanda Burt, Sam Dunn and Scot McFadyen for Toronto’s Banger Films, Mabbott and the National Film Board of Canada’s Justine Pimlott. The documentary follows the story of U.S.-born trans R&B and soul singer Shane, who was a force in Toronto’s music scene in the 1960s.

Runners-up in each category were each awarded $5,000. The runners-up for the best Canadian film award were Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson’s Rumours (Buffalo Gal Pictures, Maze Pictures, Square Peg Films) and Sophie Deraspe’s Shepherds (micro_scope, Avenue B Productions).

The runners-up for the best Canadian documentary award were Brenda Michell, Michael Toledano and Jennifer Wickham’s Yintah (EyeSteelFilm) and Ali Weinstein’s Your Tomorrow (Naiad Productions, Big Cedar Films).

The awards were announced at a Monday (Feb. 24) gala hosted by Tamara Podemski (Outer Range) at Toronto’s Omni King Edward Hotel.

Previously announced winners that also received their awards at the gala included filmmaker J Stevens (Really Happy Someday), who won the Jay Scott Prize for an emerging artist; actor Félix-Antoine Duval, who was presented the Outstanding Performance in a Canadian Film award for Shepherds; and Reelworld Screen Institute founder Tonya Williams, who won the Company 3 Luminary Award for significant contributions to Canadian cinema.

As part of winning the Luminary Award, Williams was able to donate $50,000 in post-production services from California-headquartered Company 3 to another filmmaker. Williams selected Vancouver-based filmmaker Leena Minifie as the recipient.

Image courtesy of Metafilms