Previous Award Winners

2008 Award Winners
2007 Award Winners
2006 Award Winners
2005 Award Winners
2004 Award Winners
2003 Award Winners
2002 Award Winners
2001 Award Winners
2000 Award Winners
1999 Award Winners
1998 Award Winners

Jury Awards

Canadian works made in the last three years and screening at this year's Festival are eligible for consideration by the jury.

Entertainment Partners Canada Award for Best Canadian Feature

Since 1995, Entertainment Partners Canada has shown its commitment to Inside Out and Canadian film and video makers by providing this $2,000 award for the best new Canadian feature-length narrative or documentary.

Colin Campbell Award for Best Canadian Short

This $500 cash award is named in recognition of the invaluable contribution of the late Colin Campbell to Inside Out and the Canadian video community.

Best Up-and-Coming Toronto Film or Video Maker Award presented by Charles Street Video

Presented to a film or video maker at the early stage of their career, this short film or video award is a generous $500 worth of editing time at Charles Street Video.

Audience Awards

YOU are the jury-audience opinion decides the winners of these awards. Award recognition is very important for artists when applying for grants, seeking distribution and submitting to other festivals, so please fill out the ballots provided at each screening. You can vote as many times as you like, but only once per screening, please.

Inside Out Award for Best Feature Film or Video

Inside Out presents this award to the audience's favourite feature-length film or video.

Elle Flanders Documentary Award for Best Documentary Film or Video

Mikey/Schmikey Award for Best Short Film or Video

This generous $1,000 award is provided by Inside Out supporters Michael Leshner and Michael Stark in honour of their beloved dogs.

A note from the Michaels: "Schmikey died recently in our arms in South Beach while we were on holidays. Everyone knew us as, "The Michaels," I taught him what Yiddish I knew. A Yiddish-responding dog who gives nothing but nachas (joy) to his gay Fathers-now there's a movie!"

FEATURES JURY

Chris Chin

Chris Chin is the Festival Manager at the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival, and has been going to Inside Out since 1994. Prior to Reel Asian, he has worked at film festivals including the Toronto International Film Festival, CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival, Calgary International Film Festival and Frameline, and the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival. A long-time queer activist for a wide range of social justice issues, Chris has worked and volunteered for organizations from Pride Toronto to the Toronto Public Space Committee.

Gwen Haworth

Gwen Haworth is a filmmaker and instructor who received her MFA in Film Production from the University of British Columbia. She interned with the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television and served on the Vancouver Queer Film Festival's board of directors and programming committee. Her feature documentary, She's a Boy I Knew, has received honours that include seven audience awards from festivals such as the Vancouver International Film Festival, Inside Out, and Mix Brasil. Haworth spent June 2008 teaching a grassroots filmmaking workshop in Tel Aviv, and has been commissioned by Out On Screen's Queer History Project to create a short that documents the history of transgender activism in British Columbia.

Malcolm Ingram

Malcolm Ingram began work at The Toronto International Film Festival at the tender age of twenty-one, and three years later embarked on a writing career with Film Threat Magazine. While on assignment, Ingram met Kevin Smith (Chasing Amy, Dogma, Clerks), who soon became his mentor and financed his first feature film, Drawing Flies. Small Town Gay Bar, Ingram's third film, screened at over 50 festivals internationally (among them to a sold-out screening at Inside Out), winning the HBO award for Best Documentary in Miami and the Grand Jury Award at Outfest in Los Angeles. Ingram is presently shooting Bear Nation: Looking At The History And Importance Of Fat And Hair In Gay Society, a documentary in seven parts.

SHORTS JURY

Zahra Dhanani

Zahra Dhanani (aka DJ Zahra) has been working on social justice movements for 20 years. Known for activism and creative flare, she possesses multiple talents as lawyer, speaker, facilitator, dj, show host, producer and entertainer. Currently the Legal Director at METRAC, her professional focus has been on human rights, immigration/refugee law, and restorative justice. In 2006, she was the "Honoured Dyke" of PRIDE and in 2008 was awarded the YWCA Woman of Distinction for Social Change.

Safiya Randera

Safiya Randera is an award-winning filmmaker/artist who has enjoyed international acclaim for her films. She is the recipient of awards for Audience Choice (Inside Out), Best Experimental Short, and Directorial Innovation. In 2007 she won "best pitch" at Hot Docs Rendezvous, and has twice been honoured by Quebecor/Hot Docs in the Doc Fellowship program. Randera is a first-generation South Asian-Canadian whose work reflects a sensitive fascination with the interplay between sexuality, culture and religion.

Jim Verburg

Jim Verburg's work currently employs film, text, installation and print to explore his love of modernist aesthetics and emotional matters such as intimacy and honesty. His second film For a Relationship has screened at the Oberhausen Short Film Festival, won the 2008 Jury Prize for the Best Canadian Short Film at Inside Out, and was nominated for the Iris Prize in the UK. He is working on a series of individual portrait books, showing a multimedia installation of For a Relationship at Widmer and Theodoridis Contemporary in Zurich (May 8th to June 27th), and is the artist in residence at Gallery 44 in Toronto this spring.