'Midnight's Children' Tops DGC Awards

Deepa Mehta on the shoot of Midnight's Children

There was a well-deserved upset at the Directors' Guild of Canada awards tonight when Deepa Mehta's Midnight's Children scored the prize for Best Feature Film. The award comes as a surprise since Midnight's Children faced stiff competition from Canadian Screen Award winner/Canada's Oscar nominee Rebelle and from Michael McGowan's Still Mine, which tied Mama for the most nominations overall. McGowan won the award for Best Director--a prize for which Mehta wasn't even nominated--while Rebelle walked away with the award for Best Production Design. (A curious prize since the film takes place mostly outdoors.) Midnight's Children's Best Film prize is well earned, though, as the film, adapted from the novel by Salman Rushdie, was the best dramatic film Canada had to offer last year. Also among the night's winners was Sarah Polley's documentary Stories We Tell, which continues Polley's winning streak as Stories heads into its second year on the awards circuit as it enters the race for the Academy Awards. The DGC awards were hosted by Sean Cullen and broadcast online tonight. 

The film and major TV winners are as follows:

BEST FEATURE FILM
Presented by Platinum Sponsor, Technicolor
★Midnight's Children

BEST DIRECTION - FEATURE FILM
★Michael McGowan - Still Mine

ALLAN KING AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN DOCUMENTARY
Presented by Rogers Group of Funds

★Sarah Polley - Stories We Tell

BEST SHORT FILM
★The Sound of Willie Nelson's Guitar

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN - FEATURE FILM

★ Rebelle - Emmanuel Frechette

BEST PICTURE EDITING - FEATURE FILM

★ Mama - Michele Conroy

BEST SOUND EDITING - FEATURE FILM

 ★ Mama - Allan Fung

BEST TELEVISION SERIES - DRAMA
★ The Borgias

 

BEST TELEVISION SERIES - COMEDY
★ Call Me Fitz

  BEST DIRECTION - TELEVISION SERIES
★David Wellington - Saving Hope

 

BEST TV MOVIE/MINISERIES
★ Jack

BEST DIRECTION - TV MOVIE/MINISERIES
★ Anne Wheeler - The Horses of McBride

 

 BEST TV SERIES - FAMILY
★ Heartland, Running Against the Wind

 

DGC LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
★ John M. Smith