The seventh annual Chatham-Kent International Film Festival stole the spotlight, and the winners have been announced.
The event, which took place from Friday to Saturday at the Kiwanis Theatre, saw a record number of submissions.
The festival gave out its awards on Sunday, and four Chatham-Kent natives took home titles.
Chatham Native Tullulah Abrosimoff won Most Promising Individual for her work on ‘Accursed,’ a four-minute short, focused on two friends investigating weird happenings in the woods.
‘Three Piece Suit’, a music video, and ‘Deep Southwest’, won Chatham natives Megan and Pat Whalen Best Music Video and Best Webseries.
Walpole Native, Eva Thomas, won Best Director for ‘Nika & Madison’, a movie about two Indigenous women on the run after a sexual assault and assault of a police officer. The movie has themes of resilience, loyalty, and the unbreakable bond of shared roots.
‘We Lend a Hand: The forgotten Story of Ontario Farmerettes’ took home Best Documentary Short.
The CKIFF website boasts that this year, entries had a hard fight given the calibre of competition that came in.
The full list of winners is below.
BEST FEATURE
Nika & Madison
BEST SHORT
Now, I Am A Bear
BEST DIRECTOR
Eva Thomas (Nika & Madison)
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Oleksiy Leskov (Before The Dawn)
BEST EDITING
Pranay Noel (Alterations)
BEST SOUND DESIGN
Andrea Pellegrini (The Screenwriter)
BEST MUSIC VIDEO
Three Piece Suit
BEST SCREENPLAY - MICRO
AI Motivation by Melissa Lacey Broad
BEST SCREENPLAY - SHORT
Purgatorio by Hakan Ünal
BEST SCREENPLAY - FEATURE
The Circle by Craig Urquhart
BEST WEB SERIES
Deep Southwest
BEST DOCUMENTARY - FEATURE
I Am Gitxsan
BEST DOCUMENTARY - SHORT
We Lend a Hand: The Forgotten Story of Ontario Farmerettes
BEST ACTOR - MALE
Ben Probert (The Caretaker)
BEST ACTOR - FEMALE
Kamilla Kowal (Serenity)
MOST PROMISING INDIVIDUAL
Tullulah Abrosimoff (Accursed)
PHYSICAL EFFECTS
Amber Astrope (Midnight Snack)
BEST COSTUME
Danna Roycroft (Firecrow)
COMEDIC GENIUS
Now, I Am A Bear