Maurice Vellekoop wins Trillium Book Award for graphic memoir
TORONTO - Illustrator Maurice Vellekoop has won Ontario's top literary award for his graphic memoir 'I'm So Glad We Had This Time Together.'
Ontario Creates announced Vellekoop as the winner of the $20,000 Trillium Book Award at a gala dinner in Toronto on Wednesday night.
The autobiographical project tells the story of Vellekoop's early life, growing up outside Toronto as the gay son of devoutly Christian Dutch immigrants.
Jake Byrne took home the $10,000 Trillium Book Award for Poetry at the same ceremony for their collection 'Daddy,' which explores patriarchy and queer desire.
The French-language book award went to Aristote Kavungu for 'Céline au Congo.'
The French-language children's literature prize was given to 'Le bonnet magique' by Mireille Messier.
The Trillium Book Awards are handed out annually by Ontario Creates, an agency of the provincial government.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 18, 2025.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Engadget
3 hours ago
- Engadget
Netflix signs deal to host live TV channels in France
Everything old is new again. Netflix just inked a deal to air live television broadcasts in France , turning the streaming giant into, well, regular TV. The platform will host five traditional broadcast channels from French TV behemoth TF1. Subscribers in the region will have access to live programming and on-demand content. The partnership officially begins next summer. The channels underneath TF1's umbrella air everything from reality shows like The Voice to live sports, including the French national football team's matches. The deal brings a whole lot of content to Netflix, as TF1 has a massive back catalog. This includes popular local dramas like Brocéliande and reality shows like Koh-Lanta . Greg Peters, co-chief executive of Netflix, told Financial Times that TF1 is a 'producer of great, premium content." This move could help the platform with customer retention in the region. TF1 gets access to a large pool of potential viewers, as Netflix's subscriber base in France passed 10 million in 2022 . That's around 13 percent of the country's total population. To view this content, you'll need to update your privacy settings. Please click here and view the "Content and social-media partners" setting to do so. This isn't the first time the two companies have teamed up. TF1 and Netflix have collaborated on scripted shows like Les Combattantes and Tout le bleu du ciel . This is likely due to a mandate in France that requires streaming services to reinvest in local content . It's also not the first time Netflix has experimented with live TV in the region. The platform tested a live TV channel called Direct back in 2020 . This is fascinating because Netflix began as an alternative to live TV and now it's becoming live TV . You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
Tom's Guide
3 hours ago
- Tom's Guide
How to watch 'Now or Never: FC Montfermeil' online from anywhere
A talent factory in eastern Paris, FC Montfermeil is an amateur club that punches well above its weight, its teams competing at various age levels with the likes of PSG, Lille and Lens. William Saliba cut his teeth at Henri Vidal Stadium and, over the course of a season, "Now or Never: FC Montfermeil" documents the euphoric highs and crushing lows of the hopefuls aiming to emulate the Arsenal and France star. You can watch "Now or Never: FC Montfermeil" online around the world and from anywhere with a VPN. "Now or Never: FC Montfermeil" premieres on Friday, June 20.• U.S. — Max• Watch anywhere — try NordVPN risk-free French grassroots soccer was having a moment long before PSG won the Champions League, but even then, only a minuscule number of top prospects will be offered a professional contract. "Now or Never: FC Montfermeil" follows the richly talented under-17s, who are only just coming of age but are already fighting a losing battle. If they don't catch the eye of a major club this season, they'll have next to no hope of making it. It's not until you consider that Montfermeil is one of Paris' most deprived suburbs that you understand the juncture these kids are really standing at. One mistake is enough for a scout to go cold on a player, so not only must they perform at their very best in every single game — against equally gifted and hungry prospects — but they must also prepare for the worst, by acing their exams. The brutal truth is that the final, decisive rejection that's coming most of these young men's way will haunt them for the rest of their lives. Read on to see how you can watch "Now or Never: FC Montfermeil" from anywhere in the world. Max is no. 1 on our best streaming services list for its vast, high-quality library, including all of HBO's prestige series like "Game of Thrones", "The Last of Us" and "Succession", plus recent offerings among the best Max shows such as "House of the Dragon", "A Minecraft Movie" and "The White Lotus". Away from home at the moment and blocked from watching the show on your usual subscription? You can still stream "Now or Never: FC Montfermeil" thanks to the wonders of a VPN (Virtual Private Network). The software allows your devices to appear as if they're back in your home country regardless of where in the world you are. So ideal for viewers away on vacation or on business. Our favorite is NordVPN. It's the best on the market: Using a VPN is incredibly simple. 1. Install the VPN of your choice. As we've said, NordVPN is our favorite. 2. Choose the location you wish to connect to in the VPN app. For instance, if you're visiting the U.K. and want to view a U.S. service, you'd select a U.S. server from the location list. 3. Sit back and enjoy the show. Head to your streaming service app — Max, for instance — and watch "Now or Never: FC Montfermeil" online. To access "Now or Never: FC Montfermeil" in Canada you will need Crave which includes the majority of HBO content. Plans begin at CA$9.99/month for the mobile version with the premium ad-free coming in at $22.99/month. Those traveling outside of Canada will need one of the best VPNs to log in back home to use Crave as usual. Our favorite is NordVPN. There's no confirmed broadcast slot for "Now or Never: FC Montfermeil" in the U.K. yet, but if you're an American currently across the pond you can still catch the docuseries by using a VPN, such as NordVPN. Despite Max recently becoming available in Oz, there are currently no plans to air "Now or Never: FC Montfermeil" in Australia, but if you're Down Under from the U.S., you can catch the show by using a VPN, such as NordVPN. Episode 1: June 20, 2025 Episode 2: June 27, 2025 Episode 3: July 4, 2025 Episode 4: July 11, 2025 Episode 5: July 18, 2025
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
How Criterion turned its film archives into a streaming powerhouse
The average consumer subscribes to 4.5 streaming services, many of which offer content that feels largely indistinguishable from one another. How one company is revolutionizing the way we use everyday water Pentagon Pizza Index: The theory that surging pizza orders signal global crises 5 signals that make you instantly more trustworthy at work When Netflix disrupted film and television in the late 2010s, it introduced a new model of viewership: an endless blend of originals and archives, delivered through a finely tuned personalization algorithm. Today, Disney+, Hulu, HBO Max, Peacock, and many others follow the same playbook. Not the Criterion Channel. The streamer rejects the infinite-content model, instead curating rotating collections of select films that appear for just a few months. Their offerings range from mass-market to niche indie: A recent example, 'Surveillance Cinema,' matched the $350 million-earning Minority Report with the tiny French neo-noir Demonlover. It also turns away from algorithmic recommendations—every title is handpicked by a programmer. Aliza Ma, the Criterion Channel's head of programming, says that she's 'offended' by the big streamers' model of curation. 'It's absurd in the face of art and curiosity that you would think somebody's past behavior could indicate future taste,' she tells Fast Company. This approach has earned the Criterion Channel a loyal following among artistically curious cinephiles, creating a stable, low-churn subscriber base. For just $10.99 a month, viewers from the U.S. and Canada can escape the clutches of streamer sludge. The mega-viral Criterion Closet doesn't hurt either. 'I would have expected that broader is better,' Ma says. 'It's a brilliant surprise to us that the more specific we get, the more we pull focus on a subject or theme, the better it seems to reach people.' For over 30 years, Criterion was known as a seller and refurbisher of physical media. Their DVD and Blu-ray archives sustained the business, while the company licensed their films to several video-on-demand (VOD) services. First they were available on Mubi, then Hulu, and finally FilmStruck, the streamer from Turner Classic Movies. But when FilmStruck shut down in 2018, Criterion president Peter Becker and his team decided to create their own point of access. The Criterion Channel was running by 2019 and has since eclipsed the company's physical media business. In 2024, Criterion and its sister company, Janus Films, were sold to billionaire Steven Rales, founder of the film studio Indian Paintbrush and a minority owner of the Indiana Pacers. The channel's focus on curation naturally narrows its appeal. In the ongoing 'streaming wars,' Criterion isn't trying to compete on scale. Instead, it leans into its niche. 'You have to think you care about movies enough to want a streaming service really devoted to movies,' Becker says. But specificity also creates a highly loyal customer base, he adds. Asked whether one specific collection surged traffic at the site, Becker notes that there are 'different points of entry for everybody.' Some are more popular within the streamer's walls than others—both Ma and Becker reference the 2023 'High School Horror' set featuring movies like Donnie Darko and I Know What You Did Last Summer. But subscribers come more for the curation than for any individual film, meaning they're likely to stay longer. Michael Cunningham, acclaimed author of Day and The Hours (the latter of which was adapted into a film starring Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman), is a subscriber to the Criterion Channel. 'I'm a fan because Criterion is keeping alive films that would otherwise fade away and be forgotten,' he writes in an email to Fast Company. 'It reminds us that greatness resides in a wide range of movies, from Potemkin to Some Like It Hot.' Estimating the Criterion Channel's size is a difficult task. The company declined to provide Fast Company with revenue or user figures, only saying that it 'has grown steadily since we launched.' When its predecessor FilmStruck shut down in 2018, the subscriber base was estimated at just 100,000. The Criterion Channel has likely surpassed this—it has over 100,000 downloads on the Google Play store alone. But that's still small compared with other specialty streamers like Mubi, which has more than 5 million Google Play downloads. It's audience is also shifting. 'If you had gone back 10 or 15 years and looked at who was collecting DVDs and Blu-rays, you would have seen a heavy disproportion of people who were male and over 30,' Becker says. 'That has been completely shattered.' Criterion, the company behind the channel, still operates its specialty DVD business and commissions a stable of writers to pen essays on its archive. But the Criterion Channel is the company's 'most far-reaching project,' Becker says. And then there's the company's infamous closet. It began in 2010, when Guillermo del Toro stepped into Criterion's DVD archive in New York and picked out his favorites. Choosing among a collection organized only by spine number, del Toro professed his love for François Truffaut's The 400 Blows. Criterion has continued to pump out these 'Closet Picks'—the videos are now significantly less grainy—and posts them to YouTube. 'We record a couple a week, and we're always amazed by the conversations we have in there,' Becker says. 'I think it's a relief for the people in the Closet, because they don't have to talk about their own movies.' Creatives see the Criterion Closet as more than a stop on their press tour, though. Griffin Dunne, star of films like Martin Scorcese's After Hours, relished the opportunity to rifle through Criterion's archives. 'There are a few benchmarks in an actor's or director's career,' Dunne wrote in an email to Fast Company. 'Getting your first job, any job, in the movie business. Seeing your name in a New York Times review for your first film. Getting nominated or winning for any of the EGOTs. Being invited to the Criterion Closet to talk about your favorites films.' The closet has since gone mobile. Criterion now takes a portable version on the road, drawing fans who line up for hours. Becker even recalls a couple who got engaged inside. 'We're always amazed and gratified at how young the people who come out are,' he says, noting that most attendees are in their 20s and early 30s. The traveling closet of films also reveals the diversity of Criterion's audience. Few titles are picked more than a handful of times. While some favorites recur—Richard Linklater's films, for example, or Anora—most picks are highly personal and eclectic. Has the Criterion Closet helped funnel audiences back to their streamer or paid offerings? Becker isn't interested in talking shop. The closet wasn't set up as a marketing tool, so they don't track it as one. But it has been a helpful brand extension, he concedes. 'When 13 million people see the Ben Affleck video, that's a lot of people,' Becker says. 'We're definitely reaching more people than would have sought us out without it.' Affleck's first pick from the Criterion Closet was Jean Renoir's The Rules of the Game, the 1939 French satire celebrated for its humanist worldview. It's hard to imagine the film finding traction on Netflix. How would they package it? What thumbnail image or search-friendly pitch could make it click? Its age alone might be a barrier—back in March, the oldest title on Netflix was 1973's The Sting. But viewers can find The Rules of the Game on the Criterion Channel. It appears in a 'French Poetic Realism' collection, alongside commentary from Cunningham, the novelist. They can watch the film, explore its historical context, and dip into criticism, too. That's what the Criterion Channel offers: not just content, but curation. This post originally appeared at to get the Fast Company newsletter: Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data
