Canadian Thriller 'Whistleblower' Wins Borsos Competition at Whistler Film Festival

WHISTLER, B.C. -- The Whistleblower, a political thriller by Larysa Kondracki that stars Rachel Weisz and Vanessa Redgrave, on Sunday won the Borsos competition at the Whistler Film Festival.

The prize for best Canadian first feature was handed out by jury members Bruce Greenwood, Don Carmody and Sophie Deraspe, who won last year's Borsos trophy.

The Canadian movie based on a true-life story about a Nebraskan police officer and mother who goes out on a limb to work for the United Nations as a monitor in post-war Bosnia bowed in Toronto.

Samuel Goldwyn Films picked up the U.S. rights to The Whistlerblower at the AFM market.

The thriller also stars Monica Bellucci and David Strathairn.

The Whistler jury gave its best actor prize to Rafael Lacaille for his star-turn in the Quebec film Jo For Jonathan, a drama by Canadian filmmaker Maxime Giroux.

And the best actress trophy went to Martha Plimpton for her role in Small Town Murder Songs.

And the inaugural New Voices international features competition winner in Whistler is the Greek film Attenberg, by Athina Rachel Tsangari. The movie picked up the best actress award at Venice for Ariane Labed.

Other Whistler winners: the best doc award went to Jeff Malmberg's Marwencol; the best short prize went to George Barbakadze's Via Gori; Julia Hutching's Irradiate earned the best student short trophy, and the best mountain culture film went to 2 Frogs in the West by Dany Papineau.