Tyler Hagan, Mayumi Yoshida, Nach Dudsdeemaytha
Kirsten Andrews
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Mayumi Yoshida swept the awards at the Whistler Film Festival on Saturday with Akashi, her Japanese language drama about a struggling Vancouver artist discovering her grandmother’s secret while returning to Tokyo.
Yoshida won for best Canadian feature in the Borsos competition, best actor, best B.C. director and the Haebler Award for best feature, among other honors. “It’s such an honor. Maybe I might say a poem, because I’m inspired,” Yoshida stated, while translating the Japanese-language poem. “’If you wait, sunrise will appear beyond the ocean.’ We’ve been waiting so long, so thank you very much,” Yoshida stated when picking up the Haebler prize.
And Yoshida picked up the best British Columbia director award at the festival. “I started out as an actor, and getting director awards always makes me feel like it’s an accident. But I’m starting to believe that I don’t have to feel that way,” Yoshida stated when returning to the stage as a winner.
The Canadian-Japanese director’s multigenerational love story, which has yet to land distribution, earlier picked up the best first feature film prize at the 2025 Reel Asian Film Festival and earned the audience award at the Vancouver Film Festival.
The Japanese-born and Canadian émigré also earned the best performance in a Borsos competition film for Yoshida’s star turn in Akashi as Kana, a struggling artist in Vancouver who returns to Tokyo for her grandmother’s funeral, and feels out of place after ten years abroad.
Also on Sunday, Jaryl Lim picked up the best cinematography prize for his work on Akashi, which is produced by Tyler Hagan and Nach Dudsdeemaytha.
In other prize giving, the best screenplay for a Borsos competition title went to Chandler Levack for Mile End Kicks. And the best direction trophy for a Borsos competition title went to Zacharias Kunuk for Wrong Husband.
The Haebler Award for best short went to Setareh Saleh, for her short film For Dawn, which follows three teenage girls in Iran as they navigate the complexities of advocating for women and human rights. The best short mountain culture film award went to Beauty In a Fall, directed by Nat Segal.
And the best feature in the mountain culture film category went to The Art of Adventure, from director Alison Reid, which captured the activism through the lifelong friendship of wildlife artist Robert Bateman and biologist Bristol Foster, who was on hand to help accept the award.
And the World Documentary Award went to Amalie Atkins’ debut doc Agatha’s Almanac, about the director’s aunt and her connection to nature.
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