Tracey Deer’s Beans has racked up another major accolade, winning the $100,000 Rogers Best Canadian Film Award from the Toronto Film Critics Association (TFCA).

Deer directed the story of a young Mohawk girl’s experience during the 1990 Oka Crisis and co-wrote the screenplay with Meredith Vuchnich. The feature is produced by EMA Films’ Anne-Marie Gélinas and has won a string of critical kudos since its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2020, where it was the second runner-up for the People’s Choice Award.

Beans (pictured) previously won Best Picture at the 2021 Canadian Screen Awards. The project is drawn from Deer’s childhood experience during the Kanesatake Resistance land dispute between Mohawks and the town of Oka, Que., which saw intervention by police and the Canadian Armed Forces.

The Rogers Best Canadian Film Award, handed out Monday (March 7), is said to be the richest annual film prize in Canada.

Vuchnich, who was also the film’s executive producer, accepted the award on Deer’s behalf as it was presented by directors Jennifer Baichwal (Anthropocene) and Sarah Polley (Stories We Tell) in a Toronto gala.

The runners-up for the Rogers Best Canadian Film Award — directors Shasha Nakhai and Rich Williamson (Scarborough) and director Danis Goulet (Night Raiders) — each received $5,000 from Rogers Communications.

Other previously announced TFCA winners included two-spirited L’nu director Bretten Hannam (Wildhood), who received the $10,000 Stella Artois Jay Scott Prize for an emerging artist.

David Cronenberg received the Company 3 Clyde Gilmour Award, which comes with a pay-it-forward grant of $50,000 in production services to a filmmaker of the award recipient’s choice. Cronenberg’s choice is to be announced.