![]() |
Cody Campanale's Jackie Boy, which won the OIVA for Best Director - Narrative |
The winners of the evening are a diverse group working in features and shorts, fiction and non-fiction, and narrative and experimental film alike. As expected, Hoda Elatawi won Best Director (Documentary) for her feature film Muneeza in the Middle, which screened in town at the Mayfair in December before a well-received airing on CBC. The narrative prize, on the other hand, was a surprise win for Cody Campanale’s gritty character drama Jackie Boy—it’s a surprise only because the feature film has yet to screen in town. In fact, Jackie Boy is still shopping for its world premiere,so one of the local festivals will take note and scoop and Ottawa premiere for Jackie Boy following the film’s win!
The night’s winner for Best
Director - Experimental deservedly went to Christopher Rohde’s impressive
science fiction film Odd One Out.
This unique film, which features a quartet of masked actors playing an ensemble
of up to twenty characters, creates a dark, fantastical world using practical
special effects and a jazzy score. The film, like fellow winner Muneeza, boasts some decent pre-OIVA
cred thanks to its selection at international festivals like Fantasporto and a
recent win for Best Emerging Filmmaker at the Jasper Short Film and Media Arts
Festival.
The big emerging filmmaker of the
night was Morgana McKenzie, who won the prize for Best Director Under 25 for
her music video We All Go the Same.
McKenzie, a wunderkind of the Ottawa film scene, recently took Same to the Kingston Canadian Film
Festival and her previous film Gifts
screened at several Canadian and international film festivals including TIFF’s Jump
Cuts Young Filmmakers Festival. We All Go
the Same was also a nominee in the Music Video category, but Travis
Boisvenue scooped the prize for Boyhood – Thailand. The music videos
made for one of the night’s strongest line-ups, and in some ways encapsulated
the best range of work by local filmmakers that is also available to local
audiences, and Thailand’s was worthy
winner. Boisvenue, McKenzie, and Rohde were among the night’s double nominees.
The night’s Rob Thompson Award
went to local veteran Ed Kucerak for his work as a filmmaker and mentor in the
community. Kucerak’s credits include the feature documentary Partners for Peace, narrated by Marisa Tomei,
which was also nominated in the Best Director – Documentary category and he is the
founder Kublacom Pictures and a contributor to the recently launched Ottawa Indie Fest. Finally, the People’s Choice Award went to Alex
Sutcliffe for the experimental film Unseen Ottawa—an appropriate choice for this night that brings out hidden gems
from the 613. Invisible cinema no more!
Congrats to all the winners,
nominees, and organizers for a successful inaugural event!
(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),
m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
})(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga');
ga('create', 'UA-30395848-1', 'auto');
ga('send', 'pageview');