M ontreal-based director Susanne Serres has won the 2022 WIDC Feature Film Award at this year’s Women In the Director’s Chair (WIDC) Awards celebration.

Serres took home the top prize for her dramatic debut feature Celestine (Slykid), which follows a young, religious artist in Quebec struggling to live as an openly queer, Black woman. The film is co-written by Serres and Kim Barr, who also serves as an executive producer on the film. It is produced by Benoit Beaulieu under the banner Slykid, who also serves as the cinematographer, with Lee Paula Springer as associate producer.

Serres is an award-winning filmmaker, visual artist and screenwriter. She is best known for her short films My Layers, Hippocampe and Zaya. She also directed a segment of the episode of Sesame Street, “The Mustard Factory.”

The awards celebration, which was hosted via Zoom on Nov. 27, includes cash and in-kind prizes for production, development and post-production to directors who identify as women and/or non-binary individuals, according to a news release.

The WIDC Feature Film Award includes an estimated $250,000 worth of in-kind production services from more than a dozen industry service providers, including William F. White, Front Row Insurance Brokers, Entertainment Partners Canada, and MELS Studios. The prize is designed to support narrative feature films directed by women and/or non-binary individuals that are ready for production.

The winners of the 2021 and 2022 CBC WIDC Talent Development Award were also announced, with Lindsay McIntyre and Nauzanin Knight winning the honours, respectively.

The 2022 prize will go towards a one-year tailored mentorship development package for Knight’s historical drama feature, When I Was George. The prize amount was not disclosed as of press time.

Knight, who is a filmmaker of Carribbean and Middle Eastern descent, is best known for her projects that feature social issues, including the 2021 film #SHADESOFWORTH; the dramatic feature My Lyric I Never Knew; the short documentary Precarity; and the romantic comedy ColorBlind, among others. She’s also previously held the position of story editor on Citytv’s Hudson & Rex.

Meanwhile, the 2021 prize, valued at $10,000, will go towards the research and additional community outreach in Nunavut for McIntyre’s feature film The Words We Can’t Speak. The film, which is written, directed, and produced by McIntyre alongside producer Katrina Beatty, won last year’s WIDC Feature Film Award.

McIntyre is a filmmaker and multi-disciplinary artist of Inuit and settler Scottish descent. Her credits include the animated documentary Ajjigiingiluktaaqtugut (We Are All Different); the documentary Final Roll-Out: The Story of Film; and the short film Where We Stand, among others.

WIDC co-creator Carol Whiteman also provides mentorship and services as an Executive Producer for the Feature Film Awards. The producer said in a statement that the WIDC Awards “offer essential industry resources for women and non-binary directors to get their projects made.” She added that in 2022, “WIDC alumnae directors earned record levels of development and production funding and recognition for their work.”

Images courtesy of WIDC. L-R: Susanne Serres, Lindsay McIntyre, Nauzanin Knight