Maddin's My Winnipeg named best film by Toronto critics

Guy Maddin's bizarre, fantastical tribute to his hometown, My Winnipeg, has won a new $10,000 film prize.

The avant-garde director was given the Rogers Best Canadian Film Award, presented by the Toronto Film Critics Association at a gala Tuesday night to recognize the association's favourite releases of 2008.

Sarah Polley, whose film Away From Her was named best Canadian feature last year, was tapped to present the award to Maddin.

Filmmakers such as Atom Egoyan, Robert Lantos, Bruce McDonald and Don McKellar were expected to attend the event.

Other films in the running were Stephane Lafleur's film Continental: A Film Without Guns and Yung Chang's acclaimed documentary Up the Yangtze, about issues surrounding the Three Gorges Dam in China.

"Our three finalists for the year's best Canadian film are all strongly evocative tales of characters adrift in manufactured landscapes," association president Brian Johnson, film critic for Maclean's magazine, said in a release.

"My Winnipeg gleefully obliterates the line between fact and fiction, documentary and drama, between lucid memoir and fevered dream. It's an exquisitely Canadian film that has won praise from around the world, and we are pleased to add our voice to the acclaim with this inaugural prize."

Maddin's film, which features scenes from Winnipeg history intercut with fantasy images, was also named best Canadian feature at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2006. It had special screenings throughout Canada in 2008.

Established in 1997, the Toronto Film Critics Association is made up of Toronto-based journalists and broadcasters who specialize in film criticism and commentary.