Screendaily shared the news that Ant Timpson's Bookworm, the story of an absent father who reunites with their daughter to get proof of a mythical beast, has won the Audience Award for this year's edition of Fantasia.
Bookworm was the opening film of this year's festival and stuck a chord with the Fantasia audience early, a crowd that still had two and half weeks to find another champion. They did not. The three-hour French epic, The Count of Monte-Cristo took the silver and American cringe punk comedy Rats! took the bronze prize.
Self Driver was voted the top Canadian feature, A Samurai in Time was voted Best Asian Feature, and Kidnapping Inc. the Haitian/Canadian caper comedy won Best Quebecois Feature. That last one played very well in front of the Montreal-based Haitian crowd near the end of the festival.
All the winners are listed below. Links to our Fantasia coverage of select titles can be found amongst them. Additional coverage still to come this week before we wrap everything up for the year.
2024 Fantasia audience award winners
BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATUREGold: BOOKWORM (Dir. Ant Timpson, New Zealand)Silver: THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO (Dir. Mathieu Delaporte and Alexandre de la Patelière, France)Bronze: RATS! (Dir. Maxwell Navelansky and Carl Fry, United States)BEST ASIAN FEATUREGold: A SAMURAI IN TIME (Dir. Junichi Yasuda, Japan)Silver: TWILIGHT OF THE WARRIORS: WALLED IN (Dir. Soi Cheang, Hong Kong)Bronze: PENALTY LOOP (Dir. Shinji Araki, Japan)BEST ANIMATED FEATUREGold: GHOST CAT ANZU (Dir. Yōko Kuno and Nobuhiro Yamashita, Japan)Silver: THE MISSING (Dir. Carl Joseph Papa, The Philippines)Bronze: MONONOKE THE MOVIE: PHANTOM IN THE RAIN (Dir. Kenji Nakamura, Japan)BEST INTERNATIONAL SHORTGold: FACES (Dir. Blake Simon, United States)Silver: THE STREETLIGHT (Dir. Sophia Parella, United States)Bronze: LES YEUX D’OLGA (Dir. Sarah Carlot Jaber, Belgium)BEST ASIAN SHORTGold: MEMORY (Dir. Jang Hawon, South Korea)Silver: WANNA DIE WANNA KILL (Dir. Jeong Jaehee, South Korea)Bronze: NIGHT FISHING (Dir. Byoung-gon Moon, South Korea)BEST ANIMATED SHORTGold: RUTHLESS BLADE (Dir. Bo Zhang, China)Silver: LANTERN BLADE, EPISODE 3 (Dir. Ziki Zhu, China)Bronze: Tie - LES BÊTES (Dir. Michael Berry, United States) and GIANT FISH (Dir. Si Seunghyun, South Korea)BEST CANADIAN FEATUREGold: SELF DRIVER (Dir. Michael Pierro)Silver: THE SILENT PLANET (Dir. Jeffrey St. Jules)Bronze: SCARED SHITLESS (Dir. Vivieno Caldinelli)BEST CANADIAN SHORTGold: THE SHITTY RIDE - (Dir. Cole Doran)Silver: DIRTY BAD WRONG (Dir. Erica Orofino)Bronze: BATH BOMB (Dir. Colin G. Cooper)BEST QUÉBEC FEATUREGold: KIDNAPPING INC. (Dir. Bruno Mourral)Silver: JOUR DE CHASSE (Dir. Annick Blanc)Bronze: ABABOUINÉ (Dir. André Forcier)BEST QUÉBEC SHORTGold: THE IMAGE SELLER (Dir. Donovan Richard)Silver: MOURIR EN SILENCE (Dir. Émile Lavoie)Bronze: Tie - RÉINSERTION (Dir. Youssef Harouj) and BRING BACK GUILLAUME (Dir. Kevin de Laval)BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATUREGold: VOÏVOD: WE ARE CONNECTED (Dir. Felipe Belalcazar, Canada)
The 28th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival was presented by Videotron and made possible by the financial contributions of Telefilm Canada, la Société́ de développement des entreprises culturelles (SODEC), le gouvernement du Québec, the city of Montréal, le Conseil des arts de Montréal, Tourisme Montréal, and the Directors Guild of Canada (DGC).
The festival would like to thank all its private partners, friends of the event, as well as official suppliers, venues, and all participating filmmakers, sales agents, and distributors for their invaluable support.