Screen Awards still finding their identity

The Candys? Screenies? CSAs?

Five years in, the annual Canadian Screen Awards are still carving out their identity, with a new rebrand, a new mandate and many still speculating on what the nickname should be, if there should be one at all.

“I’m going to try to come up with something,” jokes Howie Mandel, who will host Sunday’s show. “Even if they just use the acronym. We are totally aware of what a BAFTA is.” The Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television established the Canadian Screen Awards for film, TV and digital work in 2012 as a way to combine both the Genie and Gemini awards.

Last June, Beth Janson replaced CEO Helga Stephenson and recently unveiled several changes. They include a new logo and a new mission to discover and promote Canadian content “in a way that a distributor might market them.”

“I think what we’re trying to do is create a platform that we can use to reach out to the average Canadian and figure out why they should care about the Canadian Screen Awards,” Janson says.

Nominees for this year’s awards seem pleased with the direction the academy is headed in, pulling in bigname hosts like Mandel as well as previous MCs Norm Macdonald, Martin Short and Andrea Martin.

“I like what they’ve done to elevate the show and make it a bigger event,” says filmmaker Kevan Funk, who has nods for directing and writing Hello Destroyer, which is also up for Best Picture.

As for the nickname, Macdonald suggested last year that they be called the Candys, after the late John Candy.

Janson says she’d “love it if people just called them the Canadian Screen Awards.”

“I don’t know if they need an Oscar-y nickname or something like that. I think the Screen Awards works,” Funk says.