Film Award & Prize News

2022 Gala Québec Cinéma: Ivan Grbovic’s “Drunken Birds” Sweeps Quebec Oscars (Iris)

Published on June 6, 2022

The TIFF Platform comp title, official selection for Canada for Best International Feature Film category and sophomore feature by Ivan Grbovic was crowned Best Film at the Gala Québec Cinéma ceremony last night. Drunken Birds (aka Les oiseaux ivres) picked up a total of ten Iris awards including top categories Best Director, Best Screenplay (co-written with cinematographer Sara Mishara) , Best Actress (Hélène Florent), Best Supporting Actor (Claude Legault) and Best Cinematographer also went to Mishara who would end up competing against herself with Maxime Giroux’s Norbourg also getting a nom in that category.

Florent was the first actress in the event’s history to double down and win two awards – she also nabbed Best Supporting Actress for her part in Sébastien Pilote’s Maria Chapdelaine — that film also won Best Newcomer award for Sara Montpetit who was recently featured in Cannes in Falcon Lake — a film that will surely be among the noms for next year’s awards. Also worthy of a mention is a win for Best Fiction Short for producer/filmmaker Annie St-Pierre – her Sundance selected Les grandes claques (Like the Ones I Used to Know). Here is the list of nominations and winners.

Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include 1976 (Manuela Martelli), Godland (Hlynur Pálmason), Corsage (Marie Kreutzer), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen).