Really Happy Someday from J Stevens was awarded Best Canadian Feature at this year’s Inside Out Toronto 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival, which ran from May 23 to June 1. The film, produced by Stevens’ Spindle Films, follows Breton Lalama (pictured centre-right) as a transmasculine theatre performer who begins to lose control of his voice 12 months after beginning testosterone treatments. The award, which comes with a $3,000 cash prize, was presented at a ceremony held Saturday (May 31) night at the TIFF Lightbox. The remaining Canadian juried awards include the $5,000 Emerging Canadian Filmmaker Award, which went to Walter Scott for the animated short film Organza’s Revenge, and the $2,000 Best Canadian Short award, presented to Amélie Hardy for Hello Stranger (Colonelle Films).
The 2025 Canadian jury comprised CEO of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival David Harris, New York artist and producer Ariel Ottey and Toronto-based filmmaker Regan Latimer.
The international $3,000 Best First Feature award, juried by actor, writer and director Mary Galloway (Acting Good), film writer Olivia Popp, and filmmaker Laurie Townshend (A Mother Apart), went to Spanish-Colombian filmmaker Gala del Sol for Rains Over Babel.
Audience awards included Noam Gonick’s Parade: Queer Acts of Love & Resistance, produced by the National Film Board of Canada, which was presented the $2,500 award for Best Documentary Feature and Rohan Kanawade’s Cactus Pears (Lotus Visual Productions, Moonweave Films and Bridge Postworks) won for Best Narrative Feature ($2,500). Toronto’s Mohamed Khaki is a producer on the project, which also saw Bhushaan Manoj awarded the Leadership Circle Prize for Outstanding Performance for his work in the film.
The Pitch, Please! Competition, which awards a $5,000 production grant to the best two-minute pitch, saw Toronto’s Pony Nicole Herauf win for Go Piss, Girl! The competition was juried by Kirk Cooper, Tiffany Hsiung and Rabiya Mansoor.