Quebec-based short filmmaker Guy Édoin has been awarded the International Film Guide Inspiration Award at this past weekend's Awards Gala at the Festival du Nouveau Cinema (www.nouveaucinema.ca). Édoin won for La Battue (The Beat), a 19-minute short drama which screened in the Fictions Quebec section of the Best Short Film Focus program of the Festival. The Festival, which celebrated its 37th edition this year from October 8 to 19 in the historic city of Montreal, is one of the world's most provocative showcases of new film talents.

The film was chosen by the Programming Committee of the Short Film Focus section of the Festival for its "unique visual style, daring content and expansive execution". The beautifully shot film takes place on a few acres of snowy woods in northern Quebec, where a pack of women are out hunting. Lost in the forest, a teenage girl tells her mother she is leaving the family farm. The film is as proud and as tough as its female protagonists. La Battue is the final film in the director's rural trilogy, which Les Affluents: Le Pont in 2004 and Les Eaux Mortes in 2006. All of the films were shot on the director's farm and dedicated to the region and its people.

The International Film Guide Inspiration Award is presented by Wallflower Press (www.wallflowerpress.co.uk), the largest independent film book publisher in the UK, and the Criterion Collection (www.criterion.com), the leading distributor of classic world cinema. The Award, with a cash value of $2500, consists of both the 2008 and 2009 editions of the International Film Guide, a collection of film books and director monographs from various Wallflower Press series and a library of 10 classic DVDs drawn from the Criterion Collection including: RASHOMON (Akira Kurosawa), WILD STRAWBERRIES(Ingmar Bergman), NIGHTS OF CABIRIA (Federico Fellini), THE 400 BLOWS (Francois Truffaut), BAND OF OUTSIDERS (Jean Luc Godard), THE LADY VANISHES (A Alfred Hitchcock), SANS SOLEIL/LA JETEE (Chris Marker), IF (Lindsay Anderson), M (Fritz Lang) and DOWN BY LAW (Jim Jarmusch).

In addition, a profile of the winning Filmmaker and his Film will be included in the printed 2009 edition of the International Film Guide and on the sister website (www.internationalfilmguide.com), which will launch later this month.

The International Film Guide Inspiration Award will presented first at the Vancouver International Film Festival (www.viff.org) to the Canadian filmmaker Cameron Labine for his feature film Control Alt Delete. The Award will be presented at two additional film festivals before the end of the year, including the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival (www.fliff.com), to an emerging American Indie feature filmmaker; and the Santa Fe Film Festival (www.santafefimfestival.com), to an emerging Documentary Filmmaker. Plans are in place to present the Award at nearly a dozen film festival events around the world in 2009.

The International Film Guide Inspiration Award is part of the renaissance of the International Film Guide, a yearbook publication that covers the world of independent and international cinema, which is celebrating its 45th year with a January 2009 publication date. The Guide, a comprehensive 450-page book, offers a world survey of over 125 countries, as well as special focuses on the worlds of film festivals, new media and other topics of interest to film professionals, academics, programmers and cinephiles.

"We've wanted to work with film festivals to recognize new talents for a long time now", Wallflower Press publisher Yoram Allon explained. "But rather than simply offering a cash prize, we felt it would ultimately be more meaningful to the filmmakers to provide them with a unique award....one that would provide inspiration, insight and helpful tools at the start of their careers. What better mentors to these new filmmakers than the classic directors of world cinema?"