Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson win $100K Toronto film critics prize

Veteran Winnipeg filmmaker Guy Maddin and his co-director Evan Johnson have won a $100,000 Toronto film critics prize.

The duo snagged the Rogers Best Canadian Film Award for their surreal outing The Forbidden Room.

The Toronto Film Critics Association announced the winner at a downtown gala that also handed $5,000 runners-up prizes to Philippe Falardeau's "My Internship In Canada" and Andrew Cividino's "Sleeping Giant."

Earlier, the critics group named director Deepa Mehta as the recipient of its Technicolor Clyde Gilmour Award an honour which allowed Mehta to bestow $50,000 in film services to a filmmaker of her choice. Mehta chose documentary director Nisha Pahuja.

Other prizes went to director Anne Emond, who won an emerging artist award for her second feature "Les etres chers," and York University's Vladimir Paskaljevic, who won the student film award for his short "Absence Is Present."

Both awards carry a $5,000 cash prize.

Maddin claims the top award for his latest bizarre vision, a series of tales-within-tales featuring a star-studded cast including Charlotte Rampling, Geraldine Chaplin, Mathieu Amalric and Roy Dupuis.