Anthropocene filmmakers to donate $100,000 TFCA prize

TORONTO — “Anthropocene: The Human Epoch” has won a $100,000 prize for best homegrown feature from the Toronto Film Critics Association. The documentary took the Rogers Best Canadian Film Award at a TFCA gala in Toronto on Tuesday night.

Directed by Jennifer Baichwal, Edward Burtynsky and Nicholas de Pencier, the film spans 20 countries and six continents as it explores environmental issues caused by humans.

It’s the final title in their trilogy after “Manufactured Landscapes” and “Watermark.”

In accepting the honour, Baichwal and de Pencier said they will not be taking any of the prize money for themselves. Instead, they plan to split the prize money between the runners-up as well as TIFF’s Share Her Journey initiative, which supports women in film.

The runners-up, “Maison du bonheur” director Sofia Bohdanowicz and “Ava” director Sadaf Foroughi, also each received $5,000 from Rogers Communications.

“Anthropocene” is a multidisciplinary project that also includes an art exhibition.

“The whole reason we started this project was to try to make the concept of the anthropocene more in the vernacular, for people to understand that we as a species really are changing the Earth more than all natural processes combined,” Baichwal said in an interview at Tuesday’s gala.

Molly McGlynn, who is based in Toronto and Los Angeles, won the Stella Artois Jay Scott Prize for an emerging artist at Tuesday’s 22nd annual TFCA awards gala, which also honoured previously announced winners.

Renowned Metis performer Tantoo Cardinal appeared at Tuesday’s gala to receive her previously announced Technicolor Clyde Gilmour Award.

The prolific, Alberta-born Indigenous stage and screen star — whose credits include the films “Legends of the Fall” and “Dances With Wolves,” and the TV series “North of 60” — received $50,000 in services to give to a filmmaker of her choice.