The Oakville Festivals of Film and Art (OFFA) have announced the winners from the 11th annual film festival, or OFFA 2024, including the audience choice prizes for the best films from this year's event.
After a muted, post-Covid 2023 festival, this year's installation saw near-record ticket sales to the more than 100 titles screened at four different venues.
Most of OFFA's juried prizes for this past 11th Annual Oakville Film Festival were presented in a new fashion: for 2024, the awards were given out at an Awards ceremony at the Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts during the festivities.
All juried awards were given in June, with the results of the audience choice awards being announced just a few weeks ago to allow voting to finish.
This year's biggest winners were the new Canadian finance drama Kipkemboi, which won the Audience Choice Award for Best Feature and was runner-up as the best Canadian film. Both its stars Thamela Mpumlwana (as the title character) and Elsie Abang were also named among this year's distinguished performers.
Also leading the awards was this summer's sci-fi indie hit I Saw the TV Glow, winning Best International Feature and Director, as well as acclaim for star Brigette Lundy-Paine.
Newly announced is the winner of the Audience Choice Award for Best Short Film: Meteor, directed by ????, which was also a runner-up for Best Canadian Short Film.
Executive director Wendy Donnan says for this year's seven person jury, choosing the winners was "a really difficult decision. The jury painstakingly worked to watch over 100 films to choose this year's winners."
Below is a list of winners for 2024's eight juried prizes and two audience choice awards.
Winners for OFFA Awards 2024
Best Canadian Feature or Documentary: Richelieu
Best International Feature or Documentary: I Saw the TV Glow
Best Canadian Director: Rebecca Snow for The Boy in the Woods
Best International Director: Jane Schoenbrun for I Saw the TV Glow
Best Indigenous Film: The Great Salish Heist, dir. Darrell Dennis
Best Canadian Short Film: Thereby Hangs a Tale, dir. Aaron Yeger
Best International Short Film: Wings, dir. Fivos Imellos
Best Student Film: Class Crush, dir. Katherine Lynn-Rose
Audience Choice Award (Best Feature): Kipkemboi, dir. Charles Uwagbai
Audience Choice Award (Best Short Film): Meteor, dir. Atefeh Khademolreza
In addition to the nine award winners above, four performers across the feature films were recognized with honourable mentions for their performances, seen below. (The festival does not present acting awards.)
- Elsie Abang as Chiri in Kipkemboi
- Ariane Castellanos as Ariane in Richelieu
- Thamela Mpumlwana as Kipkemboi in Kipkemboi
- Brigette Lundy-Paine as Maddy in I Saw the TV Glow
- Pegah Ghafoori as Sahar in One Must Wash Eyes
- Elliot Page as Sam in Close to You
Highlights from June's awards ceremony is available on YouTube.
Organizers for OFFA have not yet set dates for the 2025 festival, though "a screening series" will be set for this fall.
More details and information on the awards for the 10th annual Oakville Film Festival is available on their website.