Zacharias Kunuk – Recipient, 2017 Technicolor Clyde Gilmour Award

November 28, 2017

The Toronto Film Critics Association is pleased to announce that filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk is the recipient of this year’s Technicolor Clyde Gilmour Award.


Toronto — The TFCA thanks Technicolor Creative Services for enabling the Technicolor Clyde Gilmour Award recipient to give $50,000 in services to a filmmaker of their choosing. Kunuk will announce his designate in the days to come.

“I am very honoured to have won this,” said Kunuk. “I wasn’t expecting it. I am so surprised. Thank you.”

“Zacharias Kunuk brings unique stories to the screen,” said TFCA president Peter Howell. “They range from the centuries-old Inuit legend behind his acclaimed 2001 debut, Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, to his more recent rethink of violent westerns with Maliglutit (Searchers). Each beckons us to look at our northern neighbours with fresh eyes.”

Adds Howell: “This is the second year running that the TFCA has honoured an Indigenous filmmaker with its Clyde Gilmour award, following Alanis Obomsawin last year, and it attests to the abundant talent in a community that has been overlooked in the past.​”

Producer of ground-breaking Inuit-language The Fast Runner Trilogy, Kunuk has earned international acclaim for his dramatic work, including winning the prestigious Caméra d’or for Best First Feature at Cannes 2001 for Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner. He was co-founder and president of Canada’s first Inuit-owned independent production company, Igloolik Isuma Productions.

The Technicolor Clyde Gilmour Award recognizes a Canadian industry figure who has made a substantial and outstanding contribution to the advancement and/or history of Canadian cinema. This includes, but is not limited to writers, directors, producers, distributors, actors, academics, cinematographers and technicians. Those who can viably be seen as forwarding Canadian cinema and culture through their work are eligible.  In the spirit of the pay-it-forward nature of the award, the recipient names an emerging filmmaker to receive $50,000 in services from Technicolor Creative Services.

The Toronto Film Critics Association will announce the bulk of its 2017 awards on December 10, 2017, including the Stella Artois Jay Scott Prize for an emerging artist, which carries a $5,000 cash prize. The TFCA will also name the three finalists for coveted Rogers Best Canadian Film Award, by far Canada’s richest film prize at $100,000 with $5,000 going to each of two runners-up.

The winner will be announced at the 21st annual TFCA Awards, a gala dinner held in Toronto at The Carlu on Tuesday, January 9, 2018. The event will be hosted by Cameron Bailey, Artistic Director of the Toronto International Film Festival.

The TFCA is extremely grateful to founding sponsor Rogers Communications Inc. for the Rogers Best Canadian Film Award, to returning sponsors Labatt’s for the Stella Artois Jay Scott Prize for an emerging artist and Technicolor Creative Services for the Technicolor Clyde Gilmour Award and salutes stalwart supporters Ontario Media Development Corporation (OMDC), The Globe and Mail, Maclean’s, Maison Birks, Shangri-La hotel, Toronto, Maclean’s and TAXI Toronto.

Please note: under the TFCA’s guidelines, contenders eligible for the awards include films released in Toronto in 2017 as well as films that qualify for the 2017 Academy Awards and have a Toronto release scheduled by the end of February 2018.

The Toronto Film Critics Association was established in 1997 and 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, electronic and web outlets are represented. Members of the TFCA also participate in the Federation of International Film Critics (FIPRESCI).  As such, they have sat on juries at festivals in Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Toronto, Montreal, Miami, Palm Springs, Chicago, Pusan, Moscow, Amsterdam, London and Vienna, among others.