'Les affamés' Leads Quebec's Prix Iris Winners

Les affamés
Emmanuel Crombez / Les Films Séville

It was a zombie apocalypse last night in Quebec! The Prix Iris, Quebec's equivalent to the Canadian Screen Awards and Oscars, were gobbled up by Robin Aubert and his team for Les affamés. The chilling ensemble drama stars Marc-André Grondin, Monia Chokri, and Brigitte Poupart as a group of rural Quebeckers as the lone survivors of a zombie outbreak. The film scored eight awards in total between last nights honours and the artistic and technical awards handed out earlier in the week. Les affamés scored wins in top categories including Best Film, Best Director for Aubert, Best Supporting Actress for Brigitte Poupart, and the annual honour of being the most acclaimed film outside Quebec.

Les affamés premiered at last year's Toronto International Film Festival where it was one of the festival's sleeper hits and scored the prize for Best Canadian Feature. Despite drawing some rave reviews and having genre appeal,  Les affamés didn't even get a Canadian theatrical release outside of its home province with the exception of film festivals and Canada's Top Ten screenings, which is a shame, since it's arguably the best film out of Quebec since Mommy.

Also bringing home ample hardware was François Girard's Oscar submission Hochelaga, Land of Souls, which scored Best Supporting Actor for Emmanuel Schwartz and a slew of technical awards. Hochelaga struggled to find much love outside the technical categories here as well as at the Canadian Screen Awards earlier in the year, as it missed nominations for Best Film and Best Director - rare for Canada's Oscar submission. 

Sophie Dupuis' Chien de garde won three awards including Best Actress for Maude Guérin and Breakthrough Performance for Théodore Pellerin. Pellerin also appear in this year's Boost and Never Steady, Never Still. 

The full list of Iris winners is as follows:

★ Best Film: Les affamés

★ Best Director: Robin Aubert – Les affamés

★ Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role: Maude Guérin – Chien de garde

★ Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role: Christian Bégin -  Le problème d’infiltration

★ Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role: Emmanuel Schwartz – Hochelaga,

Land of Souls

★ Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role: Brigitte Poupart – Les affamés

★ Best Screenplay: Les rois mongols – Nicole Bélanger

★ Best Documentary: Resurrecting Hassan – Carlo Guillermo Proto

★ Best Film Editing: Chien de gard – Dominique Fortin

★ Best Film Editing, Documentary: Manic – Anouk Deschênes

★ Best Original Score: Les affamés - Pierre-Philippe « Pilou » Côté

★ Best Cinematography: Hochelaga, Land of Souls – Nicholas Bolduc

★ Best Cinematography, Documentary: A Skin So Soft – François Messier-Rheault

★ Best Costumes: Hochelaga, Land of Souls – Mario Davignon

★ Best Art Direction: Hochelaga, Land of Souls – François Ségin

★ Best Make-up: Les affamés – Erik Gosselin, Marie-France Guy

★ Best Hairstyling: Hochelaga, Land of Souls – Réjean Forget, Ann-Louise Landry

★ Best Visual Effects: Les affamés - Jean-François « Jafaz » Ferland

★ Best Sound: Les affamés - Jean-Sébastien Beaudoin Gagnon, Stéphane Bergeron, Olivier Calvert

★ Best Sound, Documentary: La part du diable – Catherine Van Der Donckt, Jean Paul Vialard

★ Best Casting: Les rois mongols - Emanuelle Beaugrand-Champagne  

★ Best Dramatic Short: Pre-Drink – Marc-Antoine Lemire

★ Best Animated Short:  Toutes les poupées ne pleurent pas  - Frédérick Tremblay

★ Breakthrough of the Year: Théodore Pellerin – Chien de garde

★ Honorary Iris: André Forcier

★ Audience Award:  Junior Majeur

★ Global Prize (Film s’étant le plus illustré à l’extérieur du Québec): Les affamés