Red Rooms, Femme Win Big At Fantasia International Film Festival

The awards for the 2023 Fantasia International Film Festival were announced on Saturday with Red Rooms and Femme taking home the most wins. The genre film festival, which began on January 20th and runs through August 9th, announced its jury awards on Saturday night. Pascal Plante’s thriller Red Rooms (aka Les Chambres Rouges) won four awards including the Cheval Noir award for Best Feature and the awards for Best Scrrenplay (Plante), Best Score (Dominique Plante), and Outstanding Performance (Juliette Gariépy).

Meanwhile, the queer revenge thriller Femme won a second Outstanding Performance Award for star Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, as well as Best Director for Sam H. Freeman & Ng Choon Ping. Other notable awards included the ScreenLife thriller Stay Online winning Best First Feature and The First Slam Dunk winning Best Feature Film in the animation category.

You can see the full list of winners below, and see our reviews of couple of the winners here: Stay Online, Femme.

CHEVAL NOIR COMPETITION – Feature Films

* Best Feature: Red Rooms (Québec, d. Pascal Plante)
* Best Director: Sam H. Freeman & Ng Choon Ping (Femme, United Kingdom)
* Best Screenplay: Pascal Plante (Red Rooms, Québec, d. Pascal Plante)
* Best Score (The Sandro Forte Award): Dominique Plante (Red Rooms, Québec, d. Pascal Plante)
* Best Cinematography: Zelda Adams & John Adams (Where the Devil Roams, United States, d. Zelda Adams, John Adams and Toby Poser)
* Outstanding Performance: Nathan Stewart-Jarrett (Femme, United Kingdom, d. Sam H. Freeman & Ng Choon Ping)
* Outstanding Performance: Juliette Gariépy (Red Rooms, Québec, d. Pascal Plante)
* Special Mention: Vincent Must Die (France, d. Stéphan Castang)

NEW FLESH COMPETITION FOR BEST FIRST FEATURE – Debut Films

* Best First Feature: Stay Online (Ukraine, d. Yeva Strelnikova)
* Special Jury Mention: Tiger Stripes (Malaysia,Taiwan, France, Germany, d. Amanda Nell Eu)
* Special Jury Mention: The Abandoned (Taiwan, d. Tseng Ying-Ting)

INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILM COMPETITION

* Best Short Film: Bold Eagle (Philippines, dir. Whammy Alcazaren)
* Best Director: Jacob Chase (Mr. Blur, USA)
* Best Screenplay: David Winstone (The Norbelto Method, UK, dir. David Winstone)
* Outstanding Performance: Silvana Mihai (The Taster, Germany, dir. Sophia Bierend)
* Outstanding Performance: Lim Hyojin (Shoulder, South Korea, dir. Kim Jaehyung)
* Special Mention: Sweet Juices (Australia, dir. Im Sejon, Will Suen)
* Best Score: Matthias Dewilde (Poppy’s Saturn, Belgium, dir. Nicole Tegelaar)
* Best Cinematography: Julien Ramirez Hernan (Translyvanie, France, dir. Rodrigue Huart)

AXIS: SATOSHI KON AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN ANIMATION

* Best Feature Film: The First Slam Dunk (Japan, d. Takehiko Inoue)
* Special Jury Mention: Sand Land (Japan, d. Toshihisa Yokoshima)
* Best Short Film – Gold: A Kind Of Testament (France, d. Stephen Vuillemin)
* Best Short Film – Silver: Archiect A (South Korea, d. Lee Jonghoon)
* Best Short Film – Bronze: Record. Play. Stop. (India, d. Neeraj Bhattacharjee)

AQCC-CAMERA LUCIDA

* Special Jury Mention: Home Invasion (United Kingdom, dir. Graeme Arnfield)