VIFF hands out the hardware

The 29th annual Vancouver International Film Festival wrapped its two-week run with both a screening of the French film The Illusionist and a host of hardware hand-outs, as seven awards were announced Friday night.

In the juried category, the ET Canada Award for Best Canadian Feature Film went to Denis Villeneuve’s Incendies, a film which appears to be running the tables at this year’s festivals. The award came with a $20,000 prize. (For more on Incendies weekend wins, see here.)

The jury also awarded Most Promising Director of a Canadian Short Film to director Halima Ouardiri for her film Mokhtar.

Jury members this year included Andrea Henning, executive director of Arts and Culture for the Province of British Columbia; actor Deborah Kara Unger (The Game, Hurricane, Crash); writer/director/producer and educator Sandy Wilson (My American Cousin, American Boyfriends); and supervising producer of ET Canada, Frank Samson.

The audience also voted for its favorite films, giving Lucy Walker’s film Wasteland (U.K./Brazil) the accolade as the Rogers People’s Choice Award.

The VIFF Most Popular Non-fiction Film Award went to Claus Wischmann and Martin Baer for their film Kinshasa Symphony (Germany).

VIFF’s Most Popular Canadian Film Award was given to Two Indians Talking, a film by Sara McIntyre which explodes stereotypes though an examination of the relationship of two first nations cousins.

The NFB Most Popular Canadian Documentary Award went to John Zaritsky for his film Leave them Laughing, a difficult documentary about Carla Zilbersmith’s struggle with ALS.

Meanwhile, the VIFF Environmental Film Audience Award went to Sturla Gunnarsson’s Force of Nature: The David Suzuki Movie.

Two previously announced awards went to Hirohara Satoru (Japan) for Good Morning to the World! (the Dragons & Tigers Award for Young Cinema), and April Telek (Amazon Falls), who took the Women in Film & Television Vancouver Artistic Merit Award.