ANNE OF GOLD STATUES
Popular CBC series leads the pack with 13 Canadian Screen Award nominations,
This year’s Canadian Screen Awards will boast a “solid slate” of work from women, organizers said Tuesday as they unveiled the nominees and addressed how the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements might factor into the upcoming show.
CBC’s female-led Anne, featuring the plucky young heroine from Lucy Maud Montgomery’s classic novel, nabbed a leading 13 nominations. They include Best Drama Series for creators Moira Walley-Beckett and Miranda de Pencier, and Best Lead Actress for star Amybeth McNulty.
Meanwhile, two of the leading film nominees are female-led: Ava by Sadaf Foroughi and Never Steady, Never Still by Kathleen Hepburn. They each have eight nominations, tied with Hochelaga, Land of Souls by François Girard, which was Canada’s pick for the Best Foreign-Language Film category at this year’s Oscars but didn’t make the short list.
“I think the best way to recognize the future that we’re trying to create for women in our industry is to recognize their work, and we have a solid slate of work from women directors, writers, actors up for nominations this year, which I’m really excited about,” said Beth Janson, CEO of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television. Asked whether the show might have a female host, academy chair Martin Katz would only say: “We’ve had female hosts in the past and I think we’re going to be very excited when we announce the host in the next few weeks.”
Other leading TV nominees include CTV’s detective drama Cardinal and CBC’s comedy Kim’s Convenience, which have 12 nominations apiece.
CBC’s adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s novel Alias Grace and its comedy Schitt’s Creek have 11 nods each, while the CraveTV comedy Letterkenny and Global’s Mary Kills People both have nine.
Besides its Best Drama Series and Best Lead Actress nods, Anne earned nominations for Supporting Actress for Geraldine James, Supporting Actor for R.H. Thomson, Best Writing for Walley-Beckett, Best Direction for both Helen Shaver and Niki Caro, and Guest Performance for Deborah Grover.
Other Best Drama nominees include CBC’s Pure, CTV’s 19-2, Global’s Mary Kills People and History’s Vikings.
Absent is last year’s drama winner, Orphan Black, although its star, Tatiana Maslany, is again up for Best Dramatic Actress, competing against McNulty, Caroline Dhavernas of Mary Kills People, Jenny Raymond of Sex & Violence and Meaghan Rath of Rogue.
If Maslany wins it will be her fifth straight victory in the category.
Nominated for Best Dramatic Actor are Brian Markinson of The Romeo Section, Richard Short of Mary Kills People, Christopher Heyerdahl of Van Helsing, Alexander Ludwig of Vikings and Shawn Doyle of Bellevue.
The nominations for Cardinal and Alias Grace come in the Limited Series category, where both are competing against CTV’s The Disappearance, Bravo’s The Kennedys: After Camelot and YTV’s Bruno & Boots: This Can’t Be Happening at Macdonald Hall.
Cardinal’s Billy Campbell and Karine Vanasse are both up for acting awards, as are Sarah Gadon and Edward Holcroft of Alias Grace.
In the TV Comedy category, Kim’s Convenience is up against last year’s winner, CraveTV’s Letterkenny, as well as CBC’s Workin’ Moms and Michael: Every Day, and City’s Nirvanna the Band the Show.
Schitt’s Creek missed the Best Com- edy cut this year, although actors Eugene Levy, Daniel Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Annie Murphy, Emily Hampshire and Noah Reid are all nominated.
Levy father and son are competing against Paul Sun-Hyung Lee of Kim’s Convenience, last year’s victor; Letterkenny’s Jared Keeso and Mr. D’s Gerry Dee.
O’Hara, who won last year, and Murphy are up against Jean Yoon and Andrea Bang of Kim’s Conve- nience, and Catherine Reitman of Workin’ Moms.
On the film side, Never Steady, Never Still; Ava; The Breadwinner; Ravenous; It’s the Heart That Dies Last; Maudie and The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches are up for Best Motion Picture.
Awards in 30 categories, including digital media, will be presented over four nights beginning March 5, with the televised gala broadcast on CBCTV on March11from the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto.
Author Margaret Atwood and former CBC News anchor Peter Mansbridge will be among nine recipients of special awards during the week.
Atwood, whose books have inspired the recent series The Handmaid’s Tale and Alias Grace, will get the Academy Board of Directors’ Tribute for “her commitments to the growth of the Canadian media industry.”
Mansbridge will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award “for his exceptional lifetime of work, which has had a profound impact on the media industry in Canada and abroad.”
The Margaret Collier Award will be awarded posthumously to Denis McGrath “for his exceptional body of written work.”
Other special awards recipients include Jay Switzer, Clark Johnson, Pat Ellingson, Karyn Pugliese, the Rick Mercer Report series and Bell’s Let’s Talk campaign.
See academy.cafor a full list of nominees. With files from Debra Yeo