“TIFF’s annual Festival awards for films in Official Selection are integral to recognizing the excellence and artistry within our industry,” said Anita Lee, Chief Programming Officer, TIFF. “Every year, we gather to celebrate the wide spectrum of cinematic talent with the collaboration and endorsement of our distinguished global juries and peers, and we look forward to continuing this tradition again in just a few weeks.”

Awards descriptions including eligibility can be found here: tiff.net/awards

BEST CANADIAN FEATURE FILM AWARD PRESENTED BY CANADA GOOSE
Canada Goose has always played a supporting role in the magic of filmmaking. TIFF continues to celebrate the unique craft and storytelling within Canadian cinema with the Best Canadian Feature Film Award. All Canadian feature films in Official Selection — excluding first or second features — will be considered for the award. The winning filmmaker will receive a $10,000 cash prize. The 2024 Best Canadian Feature Film Award is presented by Canada Goose.

The 2024 Jury for the Best Canadian Feature Film and for the Best Canadian Discovery Award:

Estrella Araiza is the General Director of the Guadalajara International Film Festival and Cineteca FICG. Her work has focused on Mexican and Latin American cinema. Her career includes experience as the director of Industry and Market at the FICG, a sales agent, an academic, and a cinema distributor. She has served on juries for international film festivals and has collaborated with international film markets.

Chelsea McMullan is a director and producer based in Toronto. Their work in documentary, experimental narrative, and hybrid films often explore the work of leading international artists through the cinematic frame. McMullan directed Swan Song (CBC/Dogwoof), a vérité-driven feature documentary that premiered at TIFF ’23 and four-part limited series that follows the National Ballet of Canada as the company mounts a new production of Swan Lake. Their other films include Ever Deadly, Crystal Pite: Angels’ Atlas, and My Prairie Home.

Randall Okita is a Japanese Canadian artist and filmmaker known for innovative storytelling and rich visual language. His work, which spans film, VR, and sculpture, has earned more than 20 international awards, including two Canadian Screen Awards, a Webby, and a Japan Prize.

FIPRESCI JURY

Li Cheuk-to is Curator at Large of Hong Kong Film and Media for M+ Museum, and is also the current Board Chairman of Hong Kong Film Critics Society after serving as its founding President from 1995 to 1999. He has been the Artistic Director of Hong Kong International Film Festival Society from 2004 to 2018.

Pierre-Simon Gutman is deputy editor of the movie review L’Avant Scene Cinema. After studying literature at La Sorbonne, he wrote his PHD thesis on the American filmmaker Michael Cimino. He has written for 3 Couleurs, Les Fiches du Cinéma, and Eclipse(s). He teaches cinema at l’ESRA in Paris and Brussels, after having previously taught at the universities Paris VII and Nancy 2. He has also directed several short features and was for many years a programmer for the Critics’ Week of the Cannes Film Festival, on both the short and feature-film committees. He currently sits on the administration board of the Critics’ Week. He also was a member of the official jury for the Camera d’Or at the 2021 edition of the Cannes Film Festival.

Azadeh Jafari is a film critic, writer, and translator based in Tehran. She contributes regularly to different film magazines in Iran. Her English writing on world cinema has appeared in Cinema Scope, Film Comment, Reverse Shot, LOLA, and on the TIFF website. She has translated Berenice Reynaud’s book A City of Sadness on Hou Hsiao-hsien’s masterpiece into Persian and has also contributed to the book Luminous Void – Twenty Years of Experimental Film Society.

Saffron Maeve is a Toronto-based critic and film programmer. Her writing has appeared in Film Comment, The Globe & Mail, MUBI Notebook, Cinema Scope, Toronto Star, and Screen Slate. She is an active member of the Toronto Film Critics Association and GALECA, the Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics.

Wilfred Okiche is a Rotten Tomatoes–certified culture critic and film programmer. He has attended critic programs and reported from film and theatre festivals in Locarno, Rotterdam, Stockholm, and Sundance. Wilfred has worked on the programming team for Film Africa in London and Encounters in South Africa. He has mentored fast rising film critics at Talents Durban and served on the selection committee of Berlinale Talents. His writing has appeared in Variety, IndieWire, The Continent, and Senses of Cinema among other publications. He is a member of FIPRESCI and has participated in juries at the Berlinale, Palm Springs, and Carthage film festivals. He is in graduate school studying film and media at the University of Southern California.

NETPAC JURY

Hannah Fisher has spent many years working in the international industry as a festival director, a festival artistic director, and, most recently, as an international consultant and programmer. She has particularly loved working in events abroad as with festivals such as Dubai (UAE), Kolkata, Kerala Ladakh (India), Bangkok, (Thailand), Krakow (Poland), San Diego, Heartland Festival (USA), and Montreal, and as Director of the Vancouver International Film Festival.

Dr. Vilsoni Hereniko, this year’s jury chairperson, had his first narrative feature film, The Land Has Eyes, premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004 and was Fiji’s submission to the Academy Awards in 2005. It also won Best Dramatic Feature at the Toronto ImagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival in 2004. His animated short film won the Berlin Independent Film Festival in 2022 as well as the Los Angeles International Film Festival the same year. He is also the current President of NETPAC/USA and a professor at the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Hawaiʻi.

Kerri Sakamoto is an award-winning Japanese Canadian author whose books have been translated into numerous languages and published internationally. She has worked with acclaimed filmmakers as a screenwriter and story editor.

PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARDS PRESENTED BY ROGERS

The 2024 Jury for TIFF’s competitive programme, Platform, was announced earlier this year and includes Atom Egoyan, Hur Jin-ho, and Jane Schoenbrun.