Brooklyn, Room win VIFF audience prizes

Six films were named audience award winners on Oct. 9 as the festival wrapped its 16-day run. (Room pictured.)

John Crowley’s Brooklyn and Lenny Abrahamson’s Room were among the six features presented with audience awards as the 34th edition of the Vancouver International Film Festival wrapped Friday.

Brooklyn, a U.K./Ireland/Canada copro, won the VIFF Rogers People’s Choice Award, given to the festival’s most popular film overall. Brooklyn is produced by Wildgaze Films, Finola Dwyer Productions, Item 7 and Parallel Films. The Ireland/Canada copro Room won the prize for Most Popular Canadian Feature. The film, which is produced by No Trace Camping in association with Duperele Film, also won the Grolsch People’s Choice Award at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.

Other Canadian titles picking up audience awards included Charles Wilkinson’s Haida Gwaii: On the Edge, which won Most Popular Canadian Documentary, while Damien Gillis and Fiona Rayher’s Fractured Land won the VIFF Impact: Canadian Audience Award.

The VIFF Impact awards recognize features that focus on environmental or social issues, with Brad Allgood and Graham Townsley’s Landfill Harmonic winning the VIFF Impact: International Audience Award. Haida Gwaii: On the Edge is produced by Shore Films and Optic Nerve Films, while the Canada/New Zealand/USA copro Fractured Land is produced by Two Island Films. The Most Popular International Documentary prize, meanwhile, went to Stig Bjorkman’s Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words.

The festival also announced on Friday that Mina Shum was the winner of this year’s Women in Film and Television’s Artistic Merit Award for her documentary Ninth Floor. The jury for the award included marketing consultant/publicist Julia Frittaion, screenwriter and author Rachelle Chartrand and writer/producer/actor Laura Adkin.

Last week, VIFF revealed the winners of its juried awards, which included a prize for Fractured Land for Best BC Film, Sleeping Giant for Best Canadian Film and Francois Peloquin taking home the the Emerging Canadian Director award.