Indian Horse Wins Coveted VIFF Super Channel People’s Choice Award

Shut Up and Say Something, Loving Vincent and Faces Places also lauded as audience favourites

VANCOUVER, B.C. (October 13, 2017) – After a successful 16-day run, the 36th annual Vancouver International Film Festival wrapped up on Friday evening with the screening of Todd Haynes’ Wonderstruck and the unveiling of the VIFF Impact Award, presented by the Lochmaddy Foundation. The festival’s audience awards were also presented: the prestigious Super Channel People’s Choice Award, the VIFF Most Popular Canadian Documentary, VIFF Most Popular International Documentary and VIFF Most Popular International Feature.

Showing more than 340 films from 69 countries, VIFF treated audiences to fiction, documentary and genre-defying films that entertained, informed and inspired, leaving viewers in awe of creators from around the world and the filmmaking talent that exists here in Canada.

The VIFF Audience Awards were determined by viewers’ votes. Ballots were presented to audiences after each screening, with rankings on a scale of one to five–five being the highest. The following films took home the top spots at this year’s festival:

Super Channel People’s Choice Award
Winner: Indian Horse (dir. Stephen Campanelli, Canada, 2017)

VIFF Most Popular International Feature
Winner: Loving Vincent (dir. Dorota Kobiela & Hugh Welchman, Poland/UK, 2017)

VIFF Most Popular International Documentary
Winner: Faces Places (dir. Agnes Varda, JR, France, 2017)

VIFF Most Popular Canadian Documentary
Winner: Shut Up and Say Something (dir. Melanie Wood, Canada, 2017)

The VIFF Impact Award, a $5,000 prize presented by the Lochmaddy Foundation, is awarded to one of the ten issue-oriented documentary films in the 2017 VIFF Impact programming stream. This year’s award winner is Blue from director Karina Holden (Australia, 2017). The jury also extended a special mention to Keep Talking from director Karen Lynn Weinberg (USA, 2017).

Jury members: Mark Leiren-Young, Yves J. Ma, Tina Schliessler

Also announced at the award ceremony was the Vancouver Women in Film and Television Artistic Merit Award, presented to a Canadian feature film at VIFF directed by a woman. This year’s award winner is Léa Pool for the film Worst Case, We Get Married (Et au pire, on se mariera), which she directed and co-wrote with Sophie Bienvenu.

In 2017, VIFF enjoyed continued success with its ‘film plus’ model which provides stream-based programming including films, talks, events and awards, giving audiences a more rounded festival-going experience. The streams will continue to grow and evolve through VIFF’s year-round programming at the Vancouver International Film Centre. More details on the year-round stream-based programming will be available at viff.org as they are announced.

Tickets for VIFF’s year-round programming at the Vancouver International Film Centre are available for purchase at viff.org.

VIFF would like to thank Premier Partner TELUS, Premier Supporters Telefilm Canada and Creative BC as well as our other generous partners, sponsors and suppliers.

Each year VIFF relies on the hard work of more than 1,000 volunteers to assist in running the festival. VIFF would like to thank all of the volunteers for the amazing effort they contributed in making the 36th edition of the Vancouver International Film Festival a success.

Founded in 1982, the Greater Vancouver International Film Festival Society is a not-for-profit cultural society and federally registered charitable organization that operates the internationally acclaimed Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) and the year-round programming of the Vancity Theatre at the Vancouver International Film Centre. VIFF produces screenings, talks and events that act as a catalyst for a diverse community to discover, discuss and share the creativity and craft of storytelling on screen. In its 36th year, the Vancouver International Film Festival welcomes the world to Vancouver from September 28-October 13, 2017 as it showcases the top international, Canadian and BC films and plays host to industry professionals from around the globe. viff.org

• To stay up to date with year-round Film Centre programming, request to be added to our media distribution list.
• For more information on VIFF, to obtain media assets, or to request an interview, please contact press@viff.org or call 778-328-7813

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