The envelope, please - or at least the virtual one.
Oakville Festivals of Film and Art's juried and audience choice awards for the 8th Annual Oakville Film Festival were awarded in a virtual Zoom ceremony last night, Wednesday, July 7, 2021.
The ceremony marked the official end to OFFA's annual film festival, with this being the second consecutive year of the festival taking place fully online. To begin, Executive Director Wendy Donnan talked about both the challenges and newly discovered benefits of digitizing the festival.
"We have risen to the challenge in building more and new global audiences," said Donnan. "We couldn't have implemented our new slogan, Local Goes Global, without this virtual delivery method."
Last night's virtual ceremony included commemorating the festival's support from the Ontario Trillium Fund. Remarks were made by several dignitaries and special guests:
- Mayor Rob Burton
- Oakville MPP Stephen Crawford
- Joan Gallagher-Bell, volunteer with Ontario Trillium Foundation
- Executive Director Donnan
Following the speeches, awards were presented by the six-member jury in nine categories. Eligible for varying prizes were the 85 shorts and 18 feature films that brought the list of titles at this year's event over 100 for the first time.
Below is a list of winners for the seven juried prizes and two audience choice awards.
Best Canadian Feature or Documentary: Bangla Surf Girls
Best International Feature or Documentary: Nine Days
Best Canadian Director: Virginia Abramovich for Between Waves
Best International Director: Edson Oda for Nine Days
Best Canadian Short Film: The Tailor
Best International Short Film: The Plumber
Best Student Film: On the Fence, dir. Paula Ner Dormiendo
Audience Choice Award (Best Feature): First We Eat, dir. Suzanne Crocker
Audience Choice Award (Best Short Film): On the Fence, dir. Paula Ner Dormiendo
A full video recording of last night's live show is available on YouTube, with speeches from each of the winners.
More details and information on the awards for the 8th annual Oakville Film Festival is available on their website.