1+1+1 Life, Love, Chaos (1+1+1 La vie, l’amour, le chaos)

Off-beat dramedy following Pat (she hates Patricia), exuberant and melancholic author during a winter stay in her childhood cabin, where buried memories resurface. Pat needs to look in the mirror and forgive herself in order to heal, save her relationship with her musician boyfriend, Jan, and maintain the fragile bond with her tween daughter, Flavie. 1+1+1 features a restless yet strong female lead and a blended family trying to live together, where each member learns to love themselves and to love each other.

Nominations

• Best Cinematography – Edith Labbé

100 Sunset

Kunsang Kyirong sets her tale of theft, betrayal, and something like magical redemption in a Parkdale housing complex.

Nominations

• John Dunning Best First Feature – Kunsang Kyirong

40 Acres

Hailey Freeman and her family are the last descendants of African American farmers who settled in rural Canada after the Civil War. In a famine-decimated near future, they now struggle to safeguard their farm, as they make one last stand against a vicious militia hell-bent on taking their 40 Acres.

Nominations

• Best Motion Picture – Jennifer Holness
• Best Direction – R. T. Thorne
• Best Original Screenplay – R. T. Thorne and Glenn Taylor
• John Dunning Best First Feature – R. T. Thorne
• Best Art Direction/Production Design – Peter Cosco
• Best Cinematography – Jeremy Benning
• Best Sound Editing – Ed Douglas and Dermain Findlayson
• Best Original Score – Todor Kobakov
• Best Casting in a Film – Stephanie Gorin
• Stunt Coordination – Angelica Lisk-Hann

All the Lost Ones

In a dystopian and climate-ravaged future America, torn apart by civil war, a group hiding in a remote cabin become the target of a ruthless rebel militia leader and his platoon, viciously hunted in a fight for survival.

Nominations

• Best Costume Design – Crystal Silden
• Best Casting in a Film – Sharon Forrest

At the Place of Ghosts (Sk+te’kmujue’katik)

Haunted by the past, siblings Mise’l and Antle are destined to reunite and join forces against a dark spirit that emerges from their shared childhood. Once inseparable, their fractured relationship set by years of silence and a violent episode rooted in homophobia, is tested as they must return to Sk+te’kmujue’kati (the Place of Ghosts) a forest steeped in ancestral memory where time bends. What initiates from trauma soon transforms into an odyssey of healing, as Mise’l and Antle confront their caretaker’s cruelty, the weight of family secrets, and their own deepest fears. Visually stunning and emotionally raw, this extraordinary tale explores how love, even when repressed, can become the fiercest weapon against hate.

Nominations

• Best Makeup – Charlotte Gavaris and Chris Bridges
• Best Hair – Toni Warren

Blue Heron

In the late 1990s, a family of six settles into their new home on Vancouver Island, as internal dynamics are slowly revealed through the experiences of the youngest child, Sasha. Their fresh start is interrupted by the increasingly dangerous behaviour of Jeremy, the family’s oldest child.

Nominations

• Best Motion Picture – Ryan Bobkin, Sara Wylie, Sophy Romvari
• Best Direction – Sophy Romvari
• Best Supporting Performance in a Drama Film – Edik Beddoes
• Best Original Screenplay – Sophy Romvari
• John Dunning Best First Feature – Sophy Romvari
• Best Editing – Kurt Walker
• Best Casting in a Film – Angela Quinn and Katrin Braga

Boxcutter

After his laptop is stolen, an aspiring rapper goes on a quest across the gentrifying streets of Toronto to recover his music in time for the event that could change his life – a meeting with a Grammy Award-winning producer.

Nominations

• Best Casting in a Film – Tannaz Keshavarz-Agulto

Cat’s Cry

When his daughter disappears, Stamen, a retired factory worker from a small industrial town in Serbia must fight a flawed social system to gain custody of his granddaughter, who suffers from a rare condition called “Cat’s Cry Syndrome”.

Nominations

• Best Lead Performance in a Drama Film – Jasmin Geljo

Compulsive Liar 2 (Menteuse)

Driven by the idea of ​​making people around her happy, Virginie lies constantly. As her partner Phil fears, her many lies become reality and create multiverses that completely disrupt their lives and those around them.

Nominations

• Best Supporting Performance in a Comedy Film – Catherine Chabot

The Cost of Heaven (Gagne ton ciel)

On the cusp of his 50th birthday, Nacer Belkacem dreams of a better life. Yet, over the years, he has built himself an enviable position in the eyes of all: a loving family man, a happy husband, a model employee, and a respected citizen in his community. But the veneer is cracking. Beneath a seemingly perfect surface, Nacer has racked up expenses, made questionable investments, and is up to his neck in debt. On the brink of ruin, he devises a desperate plan to try to pull himself out of the water. You only have one life to earn your way to heaven…

Nominations

• Best Motion Picture – Hany Ouichou
• Best Original Screenplay – Alexandre Auger and Mathieu Denis

Deathstalker

A powerful swordsman known as Deathstalker recovers a cursed amulet from a corpse-strewn battlefield. Marked by dark magic and hunted by monstrous assassins, he must face the rising evil and break the curse.

Nominations

• Best Art Direction/Production Design – Joshua Turpin and Chloé Olson
• Best Cinematography – Andrew Appelle
• Best Costume Design – Chelsea Graham
• Best Makeup – Erin Sweeney, Jaye Falcioni and Tanya Bishoff
• Best Visual Effects – Cody Kennedy
• Stunt Coordination – Alex Chung and Tyler Williams

Dinner with Friends

Dinner with Friends follows eight friends as they try to hold on to their group as they get older and life gets complicated. Over a series of dinners, the group deals with loyalty, loss, and an uncertain future as relationships shift and secrets are unravelled, with each dinner bringing its own dynamic-shifting announcement of reconciliation, unexpected relationships, and betrayal. The city is crumbling, the climate is changing, and worries about the future of the world are making it hard for this group of friends to stay together. But they’ll come to realize everything would be much harder if they don’t.

Nominations

• John Dunning Best First Feature – Sasha Leigh Henry

Dream Eater

A filmmaker documents her boyfriend’s violent parasomnia during their holiday at a remote cabin in the woods.

Nominations

• Best Original Song – Brent Bodrug, Julian Stirpe and Siobhan Bodrug

Fanny

Fanny lives with her father, Hubert, an academic obsessed with his research who has never recovered from the death of his wife twelve years earlier. Everything changes the day a mysterious family secret resurfaces. Fanny then embarks on a frantic quest to uncover the truth surrounding her mother’s death.

Nominations

• Best Lead Performance in a Drama Film – Milya Corbeil Gauvreau

Follies (Folichonneries)

After 16 years together, François and Julie open their relationship to explore sexual adventures and self-discovery. With two kids and their bond at stake, the path proves more complex than expected.

Nominations

• Best Motion Picture – Laurie Pominville, Hany Ouichou, Éric K. Boulianne
• Best Direction – Éric K. Boulianne
• Best Lead Performance in a Comedy Film – Éric K. Boulianne
• Best Lead Performance in a Comedy Film – Catherine Chabot
• Best Supporting Performance in a Comedy Film – Agathe Ledoux
• Best Original Screenplay – Alexandre Auger and Éric K. Boulianne
• John Dunning Best First Feature – Éric K. Boulianne
• Best Editing – Myriam Magassouba

The Furies (Les Furies)

Waterloo will now have its own semi-pro men’s hockey team, thus expelling the amateur women’s leagues from the arena. To avenge their lost ice time, an impulsive hockey player and a ruthless octogenarian—a former derby champion—have a plan: recruit the city’s disenfranchised and form an underground roller derby team. With the help of the Women’s Club, they will prove that women’s sports can also inspire crowds and that sisterhood is the ultimate act of resistance

Nominations

• Best Lead Performance in a Comedy Film – France Castel

Honey Bunch

Diana’s husband is taking her to an experimental trauma facility deep in the wilderness, but she can’t remember why… As her memories begin to creep back in so do some unwelcome sinister truths about her marriage.

Nominations

• Best Lead Performance in a Drama Film – Grace Glowicki
• Best Art Direction/Production Design – Joshua Turpin
• Best Costume Design – Melinda Dempster, Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Heather Hedley
• Best Sound Editing – Matthew Chan, Bret Killoran and Gabriella Wallace
• Best Sound Mixing – Matthew Chan
• Best Makeup – Niamh McCann, Tenille Shockey and François Dagenais
• Best Hair – Sava Zeranska
• Stunt Coordination – Chris Mark and Carl Fortin

In Cold Light

Fresh out of prison, Ava’s attempt to reclaim her drug operation collapses when she witnesses a brutal crime, forcing her to flee into a nightmarish underworld where allies are scarce and enemies multiply by the minute.

Nominations

• Stunt Coordination – Sébastien Rouleau, Tom Eirikson and Jordan Dodds

It Feeds

A clairvoyant therapist confronts her own personal demons while trying to save a young girl who believes a malevolent entity is feeding on her.

Nominations

• Best Original Score – Steph Copeland

The Legacy of Cloudy Falls

Set in the Cloudy Falls residence, a run-down apartment complex in Niagara Falls that seems destined to be torn down, the film tells the story of a handful of its tenants, chosen randomly by the narrator, Rita, the building’s glib superintendent. They include Terry, an uptight, middle-aged gay man who grows enamoured of the erratic, young drifter squatting next door; Brigit, a spiritual debunker who exposes psychic frauds on her little-seen YouTube channel; Riley, a compulsive liar whose many tall tales are starting to catch up to her; and the collection of neighbours who surround them

Nominations

• Best Original Score – Adrian Ellis and Walker Grimshaw

Lovely Day (Mille secrets mille dangers)

Alain and Virginie are getting married today, but Alain is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The impending reunion of his divorced parents has plunged him into deep anxiety, only made worse by the shady schemes of his cousin and best man Edouard, who seems determined to get him involved. The groom now has only one ambition: to survive the happiest day of his life.

Nominations

• Best Motion Picture – Kim McCraw, Luc Déry
• Best Lead Performance in a Comedy Film – Neil Elias
• Best Supporting Performance in a Comedy Film – Hassan Mahbouba
• Best Supporting Performance in a Comedy Film – Rose-Marie Perreault
• Best Adapted Screenplay – Philippe Falardeau
• Best Hair – Lyne Lapiana

Measures for a Funeral

Follows a young woman named Audrey Benac on a research odyssey of ghostly possession in which she endeavours to restore the legacy of the forgotten Canadian violinist Kathleen Parlow.

Nominations

• Best Cinematography – Nikolay Michaylov
• Best Costume Design – Mara Zigler

Mile End Kicks

In 2011, Montreal’s indie music scene, Grace Pine, a 24-year-old music critic moves to the Canadian city to write a book on Alanis Morissette’s classic ‘Jagged Little Pill’ album. But her plans take an unexpected turn when she gets romantically involved with members of an indie band for whom she serves as their publicist.

Nominations

• Best Supporting Performance in a Comedy Film – Devon Bostick
• Best Original Screenplay – Chandler Levack
• Best Editing – Simone Smith
• Best Sound Editing – Elma Bello, Gabe Knox, James Bastable and Michelle Irving
• Best Sound Mixing – Michelle Irving, Jeremy Fong and Pablo Villegas
• Best Original Song – David Carriere and Jane Penny
• Best Casting in a Film – Annie St-Pierre

The Mother and the Bear

When her daughter falls into a temporary coma after an accident at her home in Winnipeg, Sara, an overbearing Korean mother travels from Seoul to Canada and vows to keep her daughter safe forever by catfishing a husband for her online.

Nominations

• Best Hair – Pina Robinson

Nika and Madison

Fearing they won’t be believed, two young Indigenous women go on the run after one’s defense of the other results in a violent attack against a police officer.

Nominations

• Best Editing – Jane MacRae
• Best Sound Mixing – Lou Solakofski and Maryan P’yatnochka

Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie

When their plan to book a show at the Rivoli goes horribly wrong, Matt and Jay accidentally travel back to the year 2008

Nominations

• Best Motion Picture – Matthew Miller, Matt Greyson
• Best Lead Performance in a Comedy Film – Jay McCarrol
• Best Supporting Performance in a Comedy Film – Matt Johnson
• Best Art Direction/Production Design – Kerry Noonan and Malcolm McKenzie
• Best Cinematography – Jared Raab
• Best Sound Mixing – Rudy Michael, Lucas Roveda, Dave Mercel and Adam Clark
• Best Original Song – Jay McCarrol and Matt Johnson
• Best Visual Effects – Tristan Zerafa, Lou Gatti, Mike Stadnyckyj, Graham Houston, Toshi Kosaka, James Soares, Christopher Shewchuk, Jeniree Bastidas, Onur Can Yol and Luca Tarantini

Out Standing

Officer Sandra Perron resigns from the Canadian military after a controversial photo surfaces. Adapting to civilian life amidst an investigation, she denies abuse allegations despite evidence suggesting mistreatment within her unit.

Nominations

• Best Lead Performance in a Drama Film – Nina Kiri
• Best Adapted Screenplay – Mélanie Charbonneau and Martine Pagé
• Best Sound Editing – Jane Tattersall, Sue Conley and David Evans
• Best Visual Effects – Marc Hall, Moon Marsolais, Vincent Campbell, David Atexide and Glavens Monfleury

Peak Everything (Amour Apocalypse)

Adam is a kind-hearted kennel-owner. Hypersensitive and borderline depressed, Adam orders a therapeutic solar lamp. Through the lamp’s supplier’s technical support line, he meets Tina, a radiant woman with a voice that soothes all of his worries. This unexpected encounter changes everything: Earth trembles, and hearts explode… It’s love!

Nominations

• Best Lead Performance in a Comedy Film – Patrick Hivon

Please, After You

Ali’s life in Canada as a newcomer is shaken when his naive cousin Omid arrives unexpectedly from overseas. His arrival sets off a tide of misadventures threatening to cost him his cherished ambitions and driving him to wits end.

Nominations

• Best Original Score – Erica Procunier

Really Happy Someday

A rising musical theatre star struggles with his changing voice during his gender transition. With the help of a singing coach, he learns to trust himself, reclaim his career, and reconnect with the people he loves.

Nominations

• Best Cinematography – J Stevens

Scared Shitless

A plumber and his germophobic son are forced to get their hands dirty to save the residents of an apartment building, when a genetically engineered, blood-thirsty creature escapes into the plumbing system.

Nominations

• Best Makeup – Heather Jennings, Steven Kostanski and Patrick Baxter
• Best Visual Effects – Vineshh Vickinadas

Soul’s Road

Disgraced rock star Ronan Garrett returns to the hometown and people he had forsaken a decade earlier, with little more than a suitcase, a well-worn knit cap, and a heart full of regret.

Nominations

• Best Makeup – Ashly Mckessock

Sway

A Black community leader, who has it all, sees his life spiral out of control within hours after his brother goes missing, he’s blackmailed by a strange woman, and a murder tests how far he will go to protect the ones he loves.

Nominations

• Best Sound Mixing – Brianna Todd and Carter Buckman

Sweet Angel Baby

Eliza is an unassuming and beloved member of a small fishing community in Newfoundland who sees all of her relationships put in jeopardy after her secret social media persona is exposed.

Nominations

• Best Lead Performance in a Drama Film – Michaela Kurimsky
• Best Supporting Performance in a Drama Film – Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers

Sweet Summer Pow Wow

A young Indigenous couple get a break from their troubled lives when they find each other through a summer of love on the Pow-Wow circuit.

Nominations

• Best Supporting Performance in a Comedy Film – Graham Greene

There, There

There, There tells the parallel stories of Ruth, an elderly woman with dementia obsessed with feeding the neighbourhood birds, and Shannon, her young homecare worker who is pregnant and has been deserted by the baby’s father. The two women find comfort in one another at these very different stages in their lives.

Nominations

• Best Direction – Heather Young
• Best Lead Performance in a Drama Film – Marlene Jewell
• Best Supporting Performance in a Drama Film – Katie Mattatall
• Best Cinematography – Catherine Lutes

The Things You Kill

Questioning the suspicious death of his mother, a university professor and his enigmatic gardener descend into a hypnotic maze of mirrors and memories. As family secrets surface and painful truths emerge, they spiral toward a devastating reckoning with the darkness lurking within us all

Nominations

• Best Motion Picture – Alireza Khatami, Michael Solomon
• Best Direction – Alireza Khatami
• Best Original Screenplay – Alireza Khatami

The Train (Le Train)

Quebec, 1960s. Agathe, an asthmatic child, lives with her mother Thérèse, a melancholic artist. At night, the recurring siren of a train fuels her vision of a parallel world where travelers from the future pass through. As a teenager, Agathe meets Frank, a young writer, who allows her to cross the border between the present and the future.

Nominations

• Best Art Direction/Production Design – Antonin Sorel

Two Women (Deux femmes en or)

Violette and Florence are two women with something in common, beyond being neighbours. While one finds herself on an emotional edge during her maternity leave, the other feels nothing at all, and neither can make sense of what’s happening to them. Realising that their suburban lives have left them unfulfilled, Florence begins an affair that kicks off a sexual revolution where having fun is the top priority. But between handyman hookups, chaotic misadventures, and marital strife, is reality destined to come crashing down on them?

Nominations

• Best Lead Performance in a Comedy Film – Karine Gonthier-Hyndman
• Best Lead Performance in a Comedy Film – Laurence Leboeuf
• Best Supporting Performance in a Comedy Film – Juliette Gariépy
• Best Adapted Screenplay – Catherine Léger
• Best Editing – Matthieu Bouchard and Chloé Robichaud

The Well

In a world where environmental collapse has left survivors to fight for the precious resources needed to survive, a young woman’s loyalties are tested by the arrival of a wounded man. When he discovers her family has a secret supply of fresh water it puts them all in the crosshairs of a dangerous cult, and their ruthless leader Gabriel.

Nominations

• Best Sound Editing – Christopher Russell, Joe Scandella, Josh Fagen and Louis Duranleau

Where Souls Go (Où vont les âmes?)

Before resorting to assisted death, an 18-year-old girl summons her two sisters, who are still traumatized by the actions of their father, convicted of rape.

Nominations

• Best Supporting Performance in a Drama Film – Monia Chokri
• Best Supporting Performance in a Drama Film – Micheline Lanctôt
• John Dunning Best First Feature – Brigitte Poupart

Whistle

A misfit group of unwitting high school students stumble upon a cursed object, an ancient Aztec Death Whistle. They discover that blowing the whistle and the terrifying sound it emits will summon their future deaths to hunt them down.

Nominations

• Best Costume Design – Leslie Kavanagh
• Best Hair – Karola Dimberger
• Best Visual Effects – Matt Glover and Dave Sauro
• Stunt Coordination – Dan Iaboni

Who by Fire (Comme le feu)

Seventeen-year-old Jeff stays at film director Blake Cadieux’s wilderness lodge after being invited by friend Max’s family. When strange events occur, Jeff suspects something is amiss with the director and his retreat

Nominations

• Best Lead Performance in a Drama Film – Noah Parker
• Best Supporting Performance in a Drama Film – Paul Ahmarani
• Best Supporting Performance in a Drama Film – Aurélia Arandi-Longpré

Wrong Husband (Uiksaringitara)

After a mysterious death, Kaujak and Sapa are separated despite being promised to each other at birth. With the help of spirit guides, efforts are made to restore harmony in this Arctic fairy tale set in an Inuit community.

Nominations

• Best Motion Picture – Samuel Cohn-Cousineau, Jonathan Frantz
• Best Direction – Zacharias Kunuk
• Best Lead Performance in a Drama Film – Theresia Kappianaq
• Best Supporting Performance in a Drama Film – Leah Panimera

Yunan

Munir travels to a remote island to contemplate a drastic action. He is haunted by a cryptic parable passed down to him by his mother. In the silence of his isolated island sanctuary, he encounters the enigmatic Valeska and her rough-hewn but loyal son, Karl. Although few words are spoken, simple acts of kindness begin to overcome their mutual distrust. Munir’s heavy burden is gradually eased and his desire for life reignited

Nominations

• Best Cinematography – Ronald Plante
• Best Original Score – Suad Bushnaq