“My Winnipeg,” director Guy Maddin’s dreamy, fantastical tribute to his hometown, has been named the top Canadian film of the year by the Toronto Film Critics Association.

The director received the Rogers Best Canadian Film Award, along with a $10,000 cheque, at a gala dinner Tuesday, where the association’s favourite releases of 2008 were recognized.

Maddin’s film, which mixes scenes from family and Winnipeg history with surreal, sometimes bizarre, imagery, was up against Stephane Lafleur’s “Continental: A Film Without Guns,” and Yung Chang’s documentary “Up the Yangtze.”

“Our three finalists for the year’s Best Canadian Film are all strongly evocative tales of characters adrift in manufactured landscapes,” Brian Johnson, association president and 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.”

Sarah Polley, whose directorial debut “Away From Her” won the prize for best Canadian feature last year, presented the award to Maddin at the gala.






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