Quebec took home the cash prizes at the 29th Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) as Denis Villeneuve’s Incendies won the Best Canadian Feature Film award and a $20,000 cash prize as the 16-day festival ended.

Quebec’s Halima Ouardiri was awarded the Canadian Images prize of $2,000 for her short film Mokhtar.

Villeneuve’s Canadian foreign language Academy Award submission triumphed in Toronto last month with the $30,000 City Of Toronto Award.

Sony Pictures Classics holds US rights and eOne Films International closed deals in Toronto for France (Happiness), Germany (Arsenal), Benelux (Cineart), Italy (Lucky Red), Switzerland (Filmcoopi), Israel (Shani) and Middle East (ECS).

Five audience awards were also handed out at the VIFF closing ceremony:

The Rogers People’s Choice Award went to the UK-Brazil co-production Waste Land by Lucy Walker;

The VIFF Most Popular Nonfiction Film Award went to Germany’s Kinshasa Symphony by Claus Wischmann and Martin Baer;

The VIFF Most Popular Canadian Film Award went to British Columbia’s Two Indians Talking;

The National Film Board Of Canada’s Most Popular Canadian Documentary Award went to British Columbia’s Leave Them Laughing by John Zaritsky; and

Sturla Gunnarsson collected the VIFF Environmental Film Audience Award for Force Of Nature: The David Suzuki Movie.

Awards previously announced at VIFF include one from the Vancouver chapter of Women in Film & Television, which presented its Artistic Merit Award to April Telek for her leading role in Amazon Falls. The $10,000 Dragons & Tigers Award for Young Cinema, announced on October 7, went to Hirohara Satoru of Japan for Good Morning To The World!

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