Toronto-based filmmaker Faran Moradi’s drama Cry Wolf won a $60,000 pitch prize at the Forest City Film Festival (FCFF) in London, Ont.

FCFF’s Feature Film Project Pitch contest, which relaunched as a nationwide pitch competition in August 2021, took place during the festival’s Ontario Screen Creators Conference on Oct. 23.

Cry Wolf was pitched by director-producer Moradi (pictured) to a panel of industry expert judges, including Paige Murray, CBC’s executive in charge of development for drama scripted content; Greg Jeffs, emerging filmmaker and digital content client services coordinator at William F. White International; Kelly Payne, Blue Ant Media’s senior director of business affairs for content and production financing; and director-writer-storyboard artist Kris Pearn.

The film, which explores the toxic cycles of stoicism in father-son relationships, is slated to go into production in late summer of 2023, with at least 50% of filming taking place in London, Ont., and the rest in Newfoundland, Moradi tells Playback Daily.

Moradi competed with five other finalist teams, including director Dennis Nicholson and producer Oliver Ward for Hells Bells; director Sean Cisterna and producer Laurence Gendron for Six Months; director Ethan Hickey and producer Michael James Regan for Falsehood; director Evan Hamza and producer Zachariah Haayema for Maple Syrup; and director Iyore Edegbe and producer Jess Palangio for Diaspora: Run Don’t Panic.

The $60,000 prize is supported by a $30,000 grant from Film London, a $10,000 equipment grant from William F. White International, and $5,000 towards scoring from Grey Owl Audio, along with support from OIART, Sage Marketing, Bizable, Platform Law and GAT PR.

Project Pitch is billed as Canada’s largest prize for a pitch contest and is designed to “help film producers get their finishing funds and bring some of their film’s productions to London – a region rich in fresh locations with a quickly growing film sector,” according to a news release.

The festival, which featured over 80 films from Oct. 15 to 23, also marked its final day with an awards ceremony.

Six Canadian projects won the category awards, including Jeremy LaLonde’s Ashgrove for Best Feature Narrative; Matthew Downs’ Tenth Generation for Best Short Narrative; Sean Cisterna’s The Long Rider for Best Feature Documentary; Noa Roginski’s Cod Story for Best Short Documentary; Daniel Blake’s The Star Mill for Best Animation; and Paula Vergara’s Hurt So Bad, performed by Bella Rosa, for Best Music Video.

Image courtesy of Forest City Film Festival