{"id":2951,"date":"2017-01-17T17:15:13","date_gmt":"2017-01-17T17:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2017\/01\/17\/the-canadian-screen-awards-go-homegrown-heavy-in-2017\/"},"modified":"2017-01-17T17:15:13","modified_gmt":"2017-01-17T17:15:13","slug":"the-canadian-screen-awards-go-homegrown-heavy-in-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2017\/01\/17\/the-canadian-screen-awards-go-homegrown-heavy-in-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"The Canadian Screen Awards go homegrown-heavy in 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

Barry Hertz \/ The Globe and Mail<\/em><\/p>\n

The 2017 Canadian Screen Awards are going to look more, well, Canadian this year. After the 2016 edition of the CSAs was dominated by Oscar darlings Room<\/em> and Brooklyn<\/em> \u2013 both technically Canadian co-productions, even if they starred Americans and Europeans and were directed by Irishmen \u2013 this year\u2019s awards slate looks as homegrown as can be.<\/p>\n

The only trick, as always, will be seeing just how many Canadians have actually heard of their countrymen\u2019s films.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s nominees for best motion picture, unveiled Tuesday morning in Toronto, might be more familiar to critics and art-house devotees than to the average Canadian moviegoer. Of the 10 films nominated, only three have arguably made much of an impact across the country, and each for their own unique reasons: Stephen Hopkins\u2019s Jesse Owens biopic Race<\/em> enjoyed wide notice last winter thanks to its international stars (Jeremy Irons, Jason Sudeikis) and a decent push from Focus Features in the United States; Matt Johnson\u2019s mockumentary Operation Avalanche<\/em> earned wide press notices thanks to a hot Sundance premiere and its director\u2019s media-savvy personality; and Juste la fin du monde<\/em> benefited from director Xavier Dolan\u2019s polarizing presence, and its Cannes premiere last spring. (Perhaps in correlation with the amount of attention it has received, Dolan\u2019s film has also nabbed the most CSA recognition this year, with nine nominations.)<\/p>\n

As for the rest of the best-picture nominees, even the most curious Canadian cinephile would admit the selections risk tipping into the obscure: Louis B\u00e9langer\u2019s marijuana comedy Les mauvaises herbes<\/em>; Chlo\u00e9 Leriche\u2019s indigenous crime drama Avant les rues<\/em>; Kevan Funk\u2019s intense hockey drama Hello Destroyer<\/em>; Johnny Ma\u2019s thriller Old Stone<\/em>; Zacharias Kunuk\u2019s revisionist Inuit western Maliglutit<\/em>; Bruce McDonald\u2019s dramedy Weirdos<\/em>; and Mathieu Denis and Simon Lavoie\u2019s Ceux qui font les r\u00e9volutions \u00e0 moiti\u00e9 n\u2019ont fait que se creuser un tombeau<\/em> (or, Those Who Make Revolution Halfway Only Dig Their Own Graves<\/em>), a festival favourite to be sure, but otherwise an unfortunately unfamiliar mouthful to anyone who doesn\u2019t closely follow the industry.<\/p>\n

And as is typical for the CSAs (and their forebear, the Genie Awards), several of the nominees have yet to even open theatrically in Canada, including Hello Destroyer<\/em>, Weirdos<\/em> and Ashley McKenzie\u2019s Werewolf<\/em>, the latter of which scored nods in several categories including best actor and best actress.<\/p>\n

According to the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television, which administers the CSAs, films that have been accepted into at least two ACCT-approved Canadian film festivals in 2016 are eligible for this year\u2019s awards. There is also, as last year, no stipulation that films must play in cinemas across the country, which partially explains the presence of such Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois productions as Avant les rues<\/em>.<\/p>\n

(The CSAs were created in 2013, with the merger of the Genies, Canada\u2019s film awards, and the English-language TV Gemini Awards. This year\u2019s top TV nominees include Bell Media\u2019s Orphan Black<\/em>, with 14 nominations; and the CBC\u2019s Schitt\u2019s Creek<\/em>, with 13 nominations, and Kim\u2019s Convenience<\/em>, with 11 nominations. The CSAs also honour digital media.)<\/p>\n

On the non-fiction film side, Black Code<\/em>, Giants of Africa<\/em>, Gulistan: Land of Roses<\/em>, Koneline: Our Land Beautiful<\/em> and Waseskun<\/em> are nominated for best feature-length documentary. But again, don\u2019t worry if none of these titles ring a bell: Eligible docs also don\u2019t need high-profile runs to qualify, but instead only a minimum of three public screenings. Or, failing that, acceptance into two ACCT-approved Canadian film festivals.<\/p>\n

Unlike last year\u2019s Hollywood-heavy outlier of a year, the 2017 CSAs find themselves stuck in a tricky situation: The awards can use whatever profile they offer to shine a spotlight on a rash of underserved films, or they risk being viewed as out of touch by selecting productions most Canadians have never heard of, let alone had a chance to view. It\u2019s not a unique dilemma when it comes to the Canadian film industry, but it is an ever-pressing one, especially as that sector continues to experience seismic change both north and south of the border, and federal Heritage Minister M\u00e9lanie Joly undertakes what has been promised as a massive review of Canada\u2019s cultural policy.<\/p>\n

For those fortunate enough to have seen most of the films being honoured by the CSAs this time around, the nominations confirm that the work of daring artists is not going ignored by the country\u2019s cultural tastemakers. Indeed, Johnson\u2019s Operation Avalanche<\/em>, Funk\u2019s Hello Destroyer<\/em>, McKenzie\u2019s Werewolf<\/em> and Denis and Lavoie\u2019s Ceux qui font\u2026<\/em> are among the most innovative and exciting works of Canadian cinema to come along in ages, not just in the past calendar year. They deserve as much attention and plaudits as available.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s doubtful the CSAs will be the event to launch those productions into the stratosphere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Barry Hertz \/ The Globe and Mail The 2017 Canadian Screen Awards are going to look more, well, Canadian this year. After the 2016 edition of the CSAs was dominated by Oscar darlings Room and Brooklyn \u2013 both technically Canadian co-productions, even if they starred Americans and Europeans and were directed by Irishmen \u2013 this … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Canadian Screen Awards go homegrown-heavy in 2017 - Thunderbird Entertainment<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2017\/01\/17\/the-canadian-screen-awards-go-homegrown-heavy-in-2017\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Canadian Screen Awards go homegrown-heavy in 2017 - Thunderbird Entertainment\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Barry Hertz \/ The Globe and Mail The 2017 Canadian Screen Awards are going to look more, well, Canadian this year. 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