Michael Moore's anti-gun documentary Bowling For Columbine has won the audience award at the 21st annual Vancouver International Film Festival.

Another documentary, Nettie Wild's Fix: The Story Of An Addicted City, shared the festival's prize for most popular Canadian feature; the film, a searing expose of Vancouver's drug culture, was co-winner with dramatic feature Expecting, directed by Deborah Day.

Keith Behrman, director of Flower & Garnet, received the Telefilm Canada prize for best emerging western Canadian filmmaker while screenwriter Nicholas Racz was named the best Western Canadian screenwriter.

Director Mina Shum and her co-screenwriter Dennis Foon received a special citation for their script for Long Life, Happiness And Prosperity. Meanwhile, Chinese neophyte filmmaker Andrew Y-S Cheng's Shanghai Panic won the Dragons And Tigers Award for Young Cinema, a prize presented in the festival's Asian cinema programme.

Other films in the programme received special citations, including Border Line, by Korean-Japanese filmmaker Lee Sang-Il, Too Young To Die by Korea's Park Jin-Pyo and Eliana, Eliana by Indonesian filmmaker Riri Riza.

The prize for best feature documentary was awarded to Canadian-Swiss filmmaker Peter Mettler for his epic-length Gambling, Gods, And LSD.