Canada's biggest volunteer-run film festival is taking pride in the fact that a film it showed has won Hollywood's highest honour.
Parasite, a South Korean film that was a favourite at this past fall's Windsor International Film Festival (WIFF), made film history in Los Angeles Sunday night. The film won four Academy Awards, and in the process, became the first non-English feature film to take home the coveted Best Picture statuette.
In addition to being the first foreign-language Best Picture winner in the 92-year history of the Academy Awards, Parasite also became the first South Korean film to win the Oscar for Best International Feature Film, formerly Foreign Language Film. The film's director, Bong Joon-ho, took home those two awards, plus Best Original Screenplay and Best Director, becoming the first person to personally win four Oscars in one presentation since Walt Disney in 1953.
Parasite also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film, as well as the prestigious Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in France.
Vincent Georgie, WIFF's executive director and chief programmer, could not be happier that Parasite created such a stir in Windsor before being crowned in Hollywood as the best film of the year.
"The international film universe is now larger than ever. We share this moment with the film as Windsor got to see Parasite first at WIFF 2019," said Georgie. "We are so proud of both the strength of our programming and the savvy taste of our loyal audience that this film was beloved to Windsor back in November. WIFF is proud to have delivered this film to both our local and out-of-town visitors ahead of its Oscar sweep."
Parasite was not the only WIFF-shown film that struck Oscar gold Sunday night. Marriage Story, a drama about a couple going through a long-distance divorce, was also shown this past fall in Windsor, as part of a WIFF partnership with the streaming service Netflix. Laura Dern collected the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for playing the female protagonist's blunt lawyer.
Another WIFF-Netflix promotion, the Martin Scorcese Mob epic The Irishman, picked up 10 Academy Award nominations.
