By Vicki Duong, The Georgia Straight
The Vancouver Queer Film Festival has announced the recipients of its 2024 awards, with $57,500 in cash and in-kind prizes being distributed to 2SLGBTQIA+ filmmakers.
Topping the list is Jules Rosskam, who received the RBC Narrative Change Award for Desire Lines. The film, a creative blend of documentary and narrative elements exploring transmasculine sexuality, earned Rosskam a $5,000 cash prize. The award, determined by an international jury, celebrates films that challenge societal norms and inspire change through cultural storytelling. Jury members resonated with Desire Lines for its bold exploration of queer and trans identities.
“In the face of cultural and industrial pressures to tell expansive and marketable stories, queer and trans audiences are worthy of films that affirm and celebrate the intricacies of our intersectional identities, we deserve the films that reveal the multiple layers and revel in the prismatic light that defines our queerness,” the jurors share in a statement. “For its fearless ethics of and commitment to risk-taking—aesthetically, formally, thematically, and culturally—and for the depths of trans and queer sexuality that it artfully explores, we present Desire Lines from director Jules Rosskam with the RBC Narrative Change Award.”
Another highlight is the Gerry Brunet Memorial Award for Best British Columbia Short, which went to directors David Ng and Jen Sungshine for Drag Is for Everyone. The duo, who previously won the same award in 2019, took home a $2,500 cash prize courtesy of the Directors Guild of Canada, BC, along with a substantial camera and gear package from Keslow Camera and Cinelease.
Other winners included Laurie Townshend’s A Mother Apart, which was named Canadian Feature by popular vote, and Janelle Niles: Inconvenient by Kelly Zemnickis and Cass Gardiner, which won top prize for a Canadian Short. Vera and the Pleasure of Others from Argentina and Seat 31: Zooey Zephyr from the USA received international recognition.
