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Best Canadian Feature winner Supporting Our Selves Photo: courtesy of Inside Out

There was great news for Argentinian filmmaker Juan Sebastián Torales last night as his semi-autobiographical blending of drama and folklore Almamula won the International Jury Prize for Best First Feature at Inside Out in Toronto. The jury also gave a special mention to Something You Said Last Night, directed by Luis De Filippis.

Inside Out has a special commitment to supporting the voices of Canadian filmmakers, and this year's Canadian Jury favourite was Lulu Wei's Supporting Our Selves, a documentary exploring networks of support and advocacy within Toronto's queer community. Meanwhile, the Audience Awards went to Ally Pankiw's tale of a traumatised stand-up comedian on a mission, I Used To Be Funny.

Those awards in full:

Canadian Juried Awards

The jurors for the 2023 Canadian jury were filmmakers Odu Adamu, Dylan Glynn, and Alice Wang

Best Canadian...

The winners of the 2023 Inside Out 2Slgbtq+ Film Festival Awards were announced this weekend in Toronto where $32,000 in prizes were handed out to various 2Slgbtq+ filmmakers. Top honours went to Juan Sebastián Torales’ Almamula (Best First Feature), Lulu Wei’s Supporting Our Selves (Best Canadian Feature), Beth Warrian’s Adore (Best Canadian Short), and Karimah Zakia Issa with Scaring Women At Night (Emerging Canadian Artist).

The Audience Award winners are Ally Pankiw’s I Used To Be Funny for Best Narrative Feature, Loveleen Kaur’s Leilani’s Fortune for Best Documentary Feature, and Zeppelin Zeerip’s Apayauq for Best Short Film.

The festival is also proud to announce director Judith Schuyler’s upcoming project There Is Light won the annual “Pitch, Please!” contest. The “Pitch, Please!” competition took place in person on June 3, 2023, with competitors from across the globe presenting a short, two-minute pitch to a jury and audience. Prizes...

Fest runs May 25-June 4 in-person and online.

The 33rd annual Inside Out Toronto 2Slgbtq+ Film Festival will open with Ira Sachs’ love triangle drama Passages and close with Tom Gustafson’s musical summer romance Glitter & Doom featuring the Indigo Girls and Missi Pyle.

The festival runs May 25-June 4 in-person and online and will showcase 107 films from 30 countries including 33 feature films and seven world premieres.

This year’s Re:Focus Gala selection is the Sundance Next Audience Award and Berlin Panorama Audience Award winner Kokomo City by D. Smith.

The Centerpiece Gala will host the world premiere of Lulu Wei’s Canadian documentary Supporting Our Selves,...

The Ira Sachs film Passages is set to open the Inside Out 2Slgbtq+ Film Festival after screening at Sundance.

The French romantic drama, which stars Ben Whishaw, Franz Rogowski and Adèle Exarchopoulos, will receive a gala treatment in Toronto. And the 33rd edition of Inside Out will close with Tom Gustafson’s Glitter & Doom, a musical love story based on the song lyrics by the Indigo Girls and featuring Alex Diaz, Missy Pyle and Tig Notario.

The festival’s lineup, unveiled Friday, also includes screenings for Supporting Our Selves, a documentary about AIDs activists by Lulu Wei that will receive a world premiere, and director Ally Pankiw’s I Used to be Funny, a dramedy about a stand-up comedian struggling with Ptsd who consider joining the search for a missing teenage girl she used to nanny.

There’s also a gala screening for D. Smith’s Kokomo City after it played at Sundance and Berlin.