Mati Diop’s Dahomey won the Allan King Documentary Award today in the annual TFCA Awards as voted by the Toronto Film Critics Association. Diop’s film observes the repatriation of stolen artworks as they travel from France to their homeland in the Republic of Benin. Dahomey premiered at the Berlin Film Festival where it won the Golden Bear. It had its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September and is now streaming on MUBI Canada.
Two films by directors with documentary roots also won prizes. Hale County This Morning, This Evening director RaMell Ross swept the TFCA Awards for his first dramatic feature Nickel Boys. The adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel won three TFCA Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Meanwhile, Payal Kapadia won two awards for her first dramatic feature All We Imagine as Light, which followed her breakthrough documentary A Night of Knowing Nothing. It won Best International Feature and Best Original Screenplay. The group also gave a special citation to No Other Land by the Palestinian-Israeli collection of Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, and Hamdan Ballal. The study of forcible evictions in the West Bank drew wide acclaim, but is still without distribution and therefore didn’t have a release to become eligible in competitive categories.
On the Canadian front, three titles compete for Rogers Best Canadian Documentary: Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story, directed by Michael Mabbott and Lucah Rosenberg-Lee; Yintah, directed by Michael Toledano, Jennifer Wickham, and Brenda Michell; and Your Tomorrow, directed by Ali Weinstein. Any Other Way is a portrait of late soul singer Jackie Shane, who broke ground as an out Black trans artist in the 1960s. Yintah is a years-in-the-making observation of Witsuwit’en land defenders. Your Tomorrow is a vérité profile of Toronto’s Ontario Place. On the dramatic side, the nominees for the Rogers Best Canadian Film Award are Rumours, directed by Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson; Shepherds, directed by Sophie Deraspe; and Universal Language, directed by Matthew Rankin. Both awards carry a cash prize of $50,000, courtesy of Rogers Communications. The two runners up in each category will receive $5,000. Winners will be announced at the TFCA Awards gala on February 24 at the OMNI King Edward Hotel, along with the winners for the Luminary Award, Jay Scott Prize for an emerging artist, and the Telefilm Canada Emerging Critic Award.
The full list of 2024 Toronto Film Critics Association Awards winners and runners-up is as follows:
Best Picture
Nickel Boys (Warner Bros. Canada)
Runners-up: Anora (Elevation Pictures), The Brutalist (Elevation Pictures)
Best Director
RaMell Ross, Nickel Boys (Warner Bros. Canada)
Runners-up: Sean Baker, Anora (Elevation Pictures); Payal Kapadia, All We Imagine as Light (Films We Like)
Outstanding Lead Performance
Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Hard Truths (Mongrel Media); Mikey Madison, Anora (Elevation Pictures)
Runners-up: Adrien Brody, The Brutalist (Elevation Pictures); Colman Domingo, Sing Sing (Elevation Pictures); Ralph Fiennes, Conclave (Elevation Pictures); Karla Sofía Gascón, Emilia Pérez (Netflix); Demi Moore, The Substance (MUBI)
Outstanding Supporting Performance
Yura Borisov, Anora (Elevation Pictures); Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain (Searchlight Pictures)
Runners-up: Clarence Maclin, Sing Sing (Elevation Pictures); Zoe Saldaña, Emilia Pérez (Netflix); Jeremy Strong, The Apprentice (Mongrel Media); Denzel Washington, Gladiator II (Paramount Pictures Canada)
Breakthrough Performance
Clarence Maclin, Sing Sing (Elevation Pictures)
Runners-up: Karla Sofía Gascón, Emilia Pérez (Netflix); Mikey Madison, Anora (Elevation Pictures)
Outstanding Performance in a Canadian Film
Félix-Antoine Duval, Shepherds (Maison 4:3)
Runners-up: Deragh Campbell, Matt and Mara (MDFF); Roy Dupuis, Rumours (Elevation Pictures)
Best Original Screenplay
All We Imagine as Light (Films We Like)
Runners-up: Anora (Elevation Pictures); Challengers (Warner Bros. Canada)
Best Adapted Screenplay
Nickel Boys (Warner Bros Canada)
Runners-up: Conclave (Elevation Pictures); Dune: Part 2 (Warner Bros. Canada)
Best Animated Feature
Flow (Films We Like)
Runners-up: Memoir of a Snail (Mongrel Media); The Wild Robot (Universal Pictures Canada)
Allan King Documentary Award
Dahomey (MUBI)
Runners-up: Occupied City (Films We Like); Soundtrack to a Coup d’État (Films We Like)
Best International Feature
All We Imagine as Light (Films We Like)
Runners-up: Evil Does Not Exist (Films We Like); Green Border (Kino Lorber)
Best First Feature
Woman of the Hour (VVS Films)
Runners-up: 40 Acres (Mongrel Media); Janet Planet (A24); The People’s Joker (Altered Innocence)
Rogers Best Canadian Film Nominees
Rumours (Elevation Pictures)
Shepherds (Maison 4:3)
Universal Language (Maison 4:3)
Rogers Best Canadian Documentary
Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story (NFB/Banger Films)
Yintah (EyeSteelFilm/Netflix)
Your Tomorrow (Blue Ice Docs)
Special Citations:
No Other Land – Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, and Hamdan Ballal
Serena Whitney and the Revue Film Society
