Maxime Giroux’s Félix and Meira swept the Canadian feature awards today at the 14th annual Whistler Film Festival. The Borsos jury — Jason Priestley, Kim Cattrall and Michael Hirsh — picked the Montreal love story between a lonely Francophone (Martin Dubreuil) and married Hasidic Jewish mother ( Hadas Yaron) as the Best Canadian Feature of six candidates. But that was just the beginning. Giroux returned to the podium again and again to accept the Best Director and Best Screenplay awards too. “I’m happy,” he said the first time. By his third or fourth acceptance, he joked “I’m f*cking happy.” Best actor honours went to Hadas Yaron — the film’s Meira — who learned to speak Yiddish and French for her role. That was a clean sweep of all four categories.
Will Felix and Meira continue to rack up honours after winning the Toronto International Film Festival’s Best Canadian Film award earlier this year? It’s likely. I attended the Whistler Film Festival’s one and only screening of Felix and Meira but my scheduled interview with Giroux had to be scrapped along with a Q&A at the screening when the jet-lagged filmmaker had to go to bed after flying in to the festival from Europe.
A happy ending?
