January 13, 2011

A scene from Incendies. Courtesy eOne Films.

“Incendies”, Denis Villeneuve’s epic adaptation of Wajdi Mouawad’s complex stage play about Quebec siblings who uncover their immigrant mother’s tortured history, has won the 2010 Toronto Film Critics Association’s Rogers Best Canadian Film Award.

The award was presented to Villeneuve by Jay Baruchel, star of “How to Train Your Dragon” (winner of the TFCA’s Best Animated Feature Award) at a gala dinner held January 12 at Toronto’s Nota Bene restaurant. Also nominated for the award were “Splice”, directed by Vincenzo Natali, and “Trigger”, directed by Bruce McDonald.

The cash value of the Rogers Best Canadian Film Award is $15,000, up from $10,000 in previous years. This marks the first time the award has been bestowed upon the same person two years in a row. (Villeneuve won the 2009 Rogers Canadian Best Film Award for “Polytechnique”.)

“Incendies” is the official Canadian entry for the 83rd annual Academy Awards.

“Winning our top Canadian prize two years in a row is a testament to Denis Villeneuve’s brilliance as a filmmaker and the astounding scale of his creative ambition,” says TFCA President Brian D. Johnson, film critic for Maclean’s magazine. “With ‘Incendies’, he has bridged Montreal and the Middle East to create a deeply resonant tragedy about family and the uncontainable nature of war.”

“Rogers is pleased to support the Best Canadian Film Award again this year,” said Phil Lind, Vice Chairman, Rogers Communications. “While tackling difficult subject matter, Denis Villeneuve has crafted another remarkable film.”

Don McKellar presented the TFCA’s Jay Scott Prize for an emerging artist to Toronto filmmaker Daniel Cockburn (”You Are Here”) and Patricia Rozema presented the inaugural 2010 Deluxe Student Film Award to Humber College student David Cadiz for his short film “Adventures of Owen”. The Jay Scott Prize is accompanied by a $5,000 cash award; the Deluxe Student Film Award carries a value of $3,000 in post-production services from Deluxe Toronto.

CBC broadcaster Jian Ghomeshi presented a TFCA Special Citation to director Bruce McDonald for a year of exceptional creativity. McDonald directed an astonishing four films in 2010: “This Movie Is Broken”, “Trigger”, “Hard Core Logo 2″ and the documentary “Music from the Big House”. As McDonald was shooting in Saskatchewan, the award was accepted by his wife, filmmaker Dany Chiasson, executive producer of the three features.