“Off World,” a film starring Filipino actor Marc Abaya, won the “Tonya Lee Williams Award for Outstanding Canadian Feature” at the 2010 ReelWorld Film Festival held in Toronto.

The fictional yet documentary-style film written and directed by award-winning French filmmaker Mateo Guez competed with 60 other entries from Canada, France, USA, South Africa, Korea, Iran, Mexico, India, Ireland, and Australia.

Aside from the prestigious recognition, “Off World” was also chosen to be the opening gala film of the five-day festival, which kicked off last April 7.

Set in one of the largest dumpsites in the world, Smokey Mountain, the film features an entire Filipino cast, which includes Irma Adlawan, Che Ramos, Lao Rodrigues, and Marco Morales.

“The only people who were not Filipino were my DOP (director of photography Francois Dagenais) and myself. And besides the main actors, all the kids, all the other people are from Smokey Mountain,” said Guez in a statement published on the film’s official website. Canadian singer-songwriter David Usher served as the film’s narrator.

The film talks about Lucky (Abaya), a Filipino raised in Canada who decides to come home to the Philippines to trace his roots. Contrary to the comfortable life he had abroad, he gets immersed into the grueling life in Smokey Mountain, where he meets his cross-dressing gay brother. On his painful journey, Lucky has to come to terms with who he is and where he came from.

“Smokey Mountain is a mix of all the things everyone is concerned about – environmental issues, health problems, poverty, corruption, the rights of children. As an artist, it’s my role and my obligation to participate, to use images to provide something for people to watch they might never hear about.

“And to be a reminder that humans are used to taking everything for granted, used to not seeing what they have, and used to complaining and asking for more, not realizing that we live in such a luxurious place. [Whereas] these people, who have none of these things, are not – it’s how you look at life,” Guez related.

“Off World” first premiered at the 2009 Sao Paulo International Film Festival in Brazil. It will be screened next at the Frameline 34 Gay & Lesbian International Film Festival in San Francisco and the 20th Inside Out Gay & Lesbian Film Festival in Toronto. It will also be part of the “Telefilm Perspective Canada Programme” of Cannes 2010.

Here’s the full list of winners:

Tonya Lee Williams Award for Outstanding Canadian Feature: “Off World” (Mateo Guez)

ReelWorld Award for Outstanding International Feature: “Children of Invention” (Tze Chun)

ReelWorld Award for Outstanding Canadian Feature Documentary: “Dogz Lyfe: Burdens of a Gangsta Rapper” (Cory Generoux)

ReelWorld Award for Outstanding International Documentary: “Why We Laugh: Black Comedians on Black Comedy” (Robert Townsend)

ReelWorld Award for Outstanding Canadian Short Film: “Funky Prairie Boy” (Mike Schultz)

ReelWorld Award for Outstanding International Short Film: “Gefilte Fish” (Shelly Kling)

ReelWorld Award for Outstanding Canadian Music Video: “Going Back to Hali” (Cazhhmere)

CBC Audience Award: “1999” (Lenin M. Sivam)

Tony Stoltz ReelWorld Visionary Award 2010: Joan Jenkinson, Director of Independent Productions and Executive Producer, S-Vox.