Montreal: Montreal’s Festival of Films on Art welcomed 30,000 attendants this year, up from 28,000 in 2003, according to founding director Rene Rozon.

‘Of the 240 films, we had 100 sold-out screenings and added extra screenings for 15 films,’ he says.

The 22nd FIFA ran March 11-21 and announced its winners at the closing-night gala, handing the Pratt & Whitney Canada Grand Prize of $5,000 to The Damned and the Sacred by Jos de Putter from the Netherlands.

Canadian Anne Troake’s Pretty Big Dig took top honors from the CGI jury, while ‘best Canadian’ bragging rights went to Joseph Hillel and Patrick Demers for Regular or Super – Views on Mies van der Rohe.

Best educational film and $5,000 went home with France’s Frederic Mitterand for La Deliverance de Tolstoi, while Finland’s Terhi Amberla landed the National Film Board’s $3,000 award for creativity for Living with Passion: Paul and Fanny Sinebryschoff as Art Collectors.

Les Lampes Akari by Danielle Schirman of France won the Emile-Nelligan Foundation Award for best essay, and Paul Smaczny of Germany won the Vasco Design Award for best portrait for Claudio Abbado – Hearing the Silence.

-www.artfifa.com