TFCA Announces Best Canadian Feature

TORONTO - My Winnipeg, Guy Maddin’s hallucinatory black-and-white love letter to his Manitoba hometown, is the first winner of the Toronto Film Critics Association’s new Rogers Best Canadian Feature Award.

This inaugural Rogers award, which carries a $10,000 cash prize, was presented to Maddin by Sarah Polley (winner of the TFCA 2007 Best Canadian Film Award for Away from Her) at the TFCA’s gala dinner, held January 6, 2009 at Toronto’s Nota Bene restaurant. Also nominated for the award were Continental, A Film Without Guns, directed by Stéphane Lafleur, and Up the Yangtze, directed by Yung Chang.

“Our three finalists for the year’s Best Canadian Film are all strongly evocative tales of characters adrift in manufactured landscapes,” says TFCA President Brian. D. Johnson, film critic for Maclean’s magazine. “My Winnipeg gleefully obliterates the line between fact and fiction, documentary and drama – between lucid memoir and fevered dream.

It’s an exquisitely Canadian film that has won praise from around the world, and we are pleased to add our voice to the acclaim with this inaugural prize. We’re immensely grateful to Rogers Communications for endowing the award. With their continued support we look forward to the TFCA awards becoming a landmark celebration of cinema that befits Toronto’s status as a vibrant film capital.”

“Rogers is pleased to sponsor this inaugural prize, and we’re excited by the Toronto Film Critics Association’s choice for Best Canadian Film,” said Phil Lind, Vice Chairman, Rogers Communications Inc. “It’s a wonderful film by a talented filmmaker and crew.”

Established in 1997, the Toronto Film Critics Association is comprised of Toronto-based journalists and broadcasters who specialize in film criticism and commentary. All major dailies, weeklies and a variety of other print and electronic outlets are represented.

The TFCA would like to thank and acknowledge the following sponsors for their generosity and support:

Rogers Communications Inc; Ontario Media Development Corporation; Copyright Collective of Canada; Maclean’s; Moet & Chandon; Four Seasons Hotel; Nota Bene; Joe Fresh Style; Cineplex Entertainment; Empire Theatres Inc.; Citytv; McGill Design + Studio.

Established in 1997 the Toronto Film Critics Association is comprised of Toronto based journalists and broadcasters who specialize in film criticism and commentary.  All major dailies, weeklies and a variety of other print and electronic outlets are represented.

Members of the TFCA also participate in the International Federation of International Film Critics (FIPRESCI).  As such they have sat on critics juries at festivals in Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Toronto, Miami, Palm Springs, Chicago, Pusan, Moscow, Amsterdam and London among others.