Canadian Screen Awards: Blood Quantum, The Nest, Funny Boys, etc...
Tuesday, March 30, 2021 at 4:00PM
NATHANIEL R in Akilla's Escape, Beans, Canada, Canadian Screen Awards, Falling, French Exit, Funny Boy, Genie Awards, The Nest, Violation

by Nathaniel R

The Canadian Screen Awards, formerly known as the Genies (Film) and Geminis (TV), have been around in their current form since 2013. The indigenous zombie film Blood Quantum, currently streaming on Shudder, led the nominations for film with 10 citations but missed both picture and director. In second place, in terms of nomination tally, was Deepa Mehta's gay drama Funny Boy (which you'll remember was disqualified as Canada's submission at the Oscars since almost all of its dialogue was in English). If you watch Funny Boy on Netflix, take note that friend of TFE Arun Welandawe Prematillek, plays the teacher in the classroom scenes. The awards ceremony on May 20th will be a virtual event.

The full motion picture nominee list and where you can see some of the films after the jump [THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED WITH THE WINNERS IN EACH CATEGORY] ...

Best Motion Picture  

You can rent The Nest on most services and Funny Boy streams on Netflix. The others are still unavailable in the US (as far as we know). This season's Canadian Oscar submission 14 Days and 12 Nights, a last minute substitute for Funny Boy, was not eligible since it was in the running for the Canadian Screen Awards last year (although it only received a single nomination).

Actress in a Leading Role 

Violation is currently streaming on Shudder and French Exit is in theaters Friday.

Actor in a Leading Role


You can rent Falling, directed by Viggo Mortensen, on most services. Castle in the Ground is currently on Starz. In the latter Alex Wolff (Hereditary) stars as a grieving teen who gets caught up in the opiod epidemic. 

Actress in a Supporting Role 

Tammy's Always Dying is a mother/daughter dramedy on Showtime (and rentable). Not sure what Felicity (the titular character and the mother) is doing in the supporting category.

Actor in a Supporting Role

Direction


Good to see Brandon Cronenberg here even though Possessor didn't make Best Picture; it's surely because the film is too unpleasant. But unpleasant doesn't mean undeserving!

First Feature Film

The Kid Detective, starring Adam Brody (as a former celebrated kid detective) and Sophie Nelisse, is rentable from most services. Tito is streaming on Amazon Prime. 

Art Direction / Production Design

Guest of Honour is an Atom Egoyan film and rentable from most services. But it didn't score to well at the CSAs as this was one of only a few nods.

Casting

Dierdre Bowen is double nominated (Falling, Possessor). 

Cinematography 

Costume Design

Editing 

Hair

Make-Up


Interesting to see an awards show that separates hair and makeup. And they only have one crossover nominee Random Acts of Violence a horror film starring Jesse Williams, Jay Baruchel, and Jordana Brewster. It's currently streaming on Shudder.


Music – Original Score

Aw man. Very upsetting that the very terrific score for The Nest wasnt nominated since the Nest showed up in several categories. 

Music – Original Song 

Sound Editing 

Sound Mixing

Visual Effects

So um... how does French Exit make this category and not.... oh... Possessor?

Original Screenplay 

Adapted Screenplay 

Stunt Coordination 

Hmmm. for this one category they mix tv and film? And have less nominees. Very strange. 

Documentary Feature 

Documentary Cinematography 

Documentary Editing 

Short Documentary 

Live Action Short 

Animated Short

The Canadian Screen Awards also have TV and Digital Media awards but that document was literally 8 times as long as what is shared above and some of it is very local so we didn't have the strength. It's like the Grammy and Emmys actually in that the non-film categories go on and on covering every possible variation of things. But here are a few things we noticed perusing that list which you can see in its entirety here.

Canadian comedy appears to travel more than Canadian drama (we've often wondered why we don't get more Canadian programming in the US since it's often in English but streaming is making it more accessible). Still we recognized just one of the drama series nominees (Vikings) compared to 3 of the comedy nominees (Letterkenny, Schitt's Creek, Kim's Convenience).

The lead actor in a drama race is a very attractive bunch and we've loved Billy Campbell our whole lives but are always losing track of what he's doing (as he does a lot of network type work in genres that aren't personal favourites like procedurals).

and Peter Knegt, who we know slightly from his days at IndieWire and from film festivals has three nominations within "Digital Media".  Congrats, Peter!

 

So proud of these three projects and the *stunning* people I worked on them with. Thank you so much @TheCdnAcademy and also ♥️♥️♥️ my fellow nominees @OunoMeme @romeocandido @LuciusDechausay @marchmercanti @mikebickerton @mikeyerxa @eleanorgrace @jeffhume @kc_hoard. pic.twitter.com/SMSEJPmAkP

— Peter Knegt (@peterknegt) March 30, 2021

FINAL WINNERS NOTE: In the television categories Schitt's Creek dominated winning Best Comedy Series, Best Direction, Best Writing, Best Costume Design, Best Hair, Best Casting, Best Lead Actress (Catherine O'Hara), Best Supporting Actress (Emily Hampshire). The well loved Kim's Convenience also picked up three acting prizes for Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, Andrew Phung, and Amanda Brugel

 


 

Article originally appeared on The Film Experience (http://thefilmexperience.net/).
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