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| Joan Allen as Grandma, William H. Macy as Grandpa and Brie Larson as Ma in Room.
Photo by Caitlin Cronenberg, courtesy of Elevation Pictures |
The Canadian Screen Awards always seem to mirror the Oscars
in some way. This year’s doubling comes in one easy fact: it’s an open race
with no sure frontrunner. The obvious money probably goes to Room, but it isn’t as hugely successful
at the Canadian b.o. as some hoped it would be, whereas Brooklyn most recently pulled in a per-theatre average that was five
times higher than Room’s on eight
times as many screens for a
weekly take of over $400 000. That’s impressive for a Canadian film in Canada.
The Best Picture Oscar nominees are likely to be top contenders in next week’s
Screenie nominations—if industry peers embrace these co-productions as
“Canadian,” which I think the do/should/will. Overall, though, this year has one of the stronger fields.
Let’s look at these three factors.
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| The Forbidden Room. Mongrel Media |
2015 Theatrical Releases
A few obvious candidates appear here: Philippe Falardeau’s
riotous satire My Internship in Canada
and Anne Émond’s Les êtres chers are
two respectable films to join Felix and
Meira as tried and tested films with a shot at Best Picture. Ditto (to some
extent) the Quebec box office hit/singing nun movie The Passion of Augustine, which has a huge box office tally despite
not having a theatrical run outside the province. This year also has the rare
case of a film using a qualifying run for eligibility before its theatrical
release in April. This film, as mentioned in previous posts, is festival
sensation Sleeping Giant, which
offers a top contender if voters embrace a young talent. (Remember the first
Dolan snub?) Other under the radar films that could peep in include the great
but underseen Two 4 One (maybe acting
noms for Gavin Crawford and Gabrielle Rose?), the funny Guidance (Pat Mills gives a performance that’s hard to ignore),
Canada’s Top Ten surprise The Demons
(a critical hit and box office dud), crowd-pleaser Turbo Kid, and the animated remake of La guerre des tuques (dubbed Snowtime
outside Quebec).
The other big challenger is Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson’s The Forbidden Room, which could amass
the largest overall tally or a scant smattering of arts and tech noms. It’s the
best Canadian film of the year by a long mile (or kilometre, to keep it
Canadian), but he has a fairly tenuous relationship with Academy voters despite
being one of Canada’s most consistently praised filmmakers. He has not a single
Best Picture nominee on his résumé and a lone Best Director nomination for The Saddest Music in the World. His one
win is for a short and his last nomination was for the doc My Winnipeg. Aside from that, his movies get a tech nom here or
there, if anything. In fairness to Screenie voters, though, Maddin makes risqué
avant-garde films that are acquired tastes and are films that struggle to gain
recognition from any voting body. It would be a bold move for the Academy to
recognize a film as flat-out crazy as The
Forbidden Room, but there’s no question that this work is one of Maddin’s
best and most satisfying films.
Other possibilities include some Academy favourites looking
for some love. Paul Gross’s Hyena Road
is one of last year’s critical and commercial disappointments on the Canadian
front, but the “Prince of Populism” (as Maddin calls him in Bring Me the Head of Tim Horton) has a
solid film from a technical point of view, so peers might acknowledge the
effort to make commercially viable Can Con. On the other hand, Deepa Mehta’s
well-intentioned misfire Beeba Boys
(which features Gross in a bizarre performance) isn’t awards material by any
means, but efforts to diversify the field could work in her favour. However,
any category in which the film has a fighting chance is one of the stronger
races. Maybe a costume nom is all the film will get. Finally, Atom Egoyan’s Remember is bound to appear somewhere,
especially in the acting races with Christopher Plummer and Martin Landau
giving award-calibre work. The film has a chance if Egoyan’s
critically-maligned The Captive
managed four nominations last year.
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| Into the Forest Elevation Pictures |
The Festival Films
This part is where it gets tricky. Screenie rules allow
films to submit if they have two or more screenings at approved festivals.
(Generally festivals of mid to high calibre.) However, films must also screen
theatrically prior to the awards ceremony in March. This seems fair—much like
how Oscar contenders use qualifying runs to secure eligibility and then
capitalize on a theatrical run once nominations are out. (Note: the theatrical
screening rule does not apply to films submitting for the new Discovery award,
which acknowledges a film from the festival circuit with a budget under $250
000.)
A few festival films have confirmed theatrical releases set
for the Screenie deadline and are therefore possible contenders. Add The Witch (February 19), Born to Be Blue (March 11), River (March 4), and Into the Forest (March TBA) to the mix. The Witch and Into the Forest are the two strongest contenders of the festival
films, although the latter of which is bound to have the stronger showing given
the draw of Patricia Rozema and Ellen Page. (I’m rooting for both!)
The festival contenders are sometimes tricky since films can
squeak by via special allowance, usually if they have a healthy showing from
the festival circuit to show they proved themselves in the year before. For
example, Bang Bang Baby came out in
August despite being a Screenie nominee and special prize winner for Jeffrey St.
Jules. The film won Best Canadian First Feature at TIFF and screened at ample
festivals, so few seemed to mind the late release. This factor could throw TIFF’s
Best Canadian Feature winner Closet Monster into the mix even though Quebec distrib Remstar lists a July 8 release.
The rule of intended release does not apply to docs and
shorts with ‘Best Film’ wins at approved festivals.
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| Saoirse Ronan as "Eilis Lacey" and Jim Broadbent as "Father Flood" in Brooklyn. Photo by Kerry Brown. Courtesy of Mongrel Media. |
The Co-Productions
This is the part where it gets even trickier. Majority co-productions
like Room are eligible across the
board since Canada is the primary investor. Minority co-pros are eligible for
Best Picture and for craft/performance awards if the contender is a Canadian;
however, if the film has a Canadian director or writer, then everything is eligible.
This rule pulls a film like The Girl King
into contention for categories like costumes or actress since writer Michel
Marc Bouchard is a Canuck. Alternatively, the favour doesn’t apply to a co-pro
like The Witch or Brooklyn since the directors/writers are
foreigners. One must simply play ‘spot
the Canadian’ to guess the nominees. So, this means when it comes to co-pros,
Brie Larson is eligible, but Saoirse Ronan is not.
But here’s the real question: is The Witch’s Black Philip eligible? Surely, the goat must be
Canadian if they shot the film here? Best Supporting Actor, I say!
With those in mind, let’s move on to some predictions—just for
fun!
Nominees are announced Jan. 19
Predictions:
Best Picture
What about: Remember, Beeba Boys, Closet Monster,
Corbo, The Passion of Augustine, Sabali,
Turbo Kid, The Witch, Born to Be Blue, Ville-Marie
Best Director:
Lenny Abrahamson, Room
Andrew Cividino, Sleeping Giant
Philippe Falardeau, The Forbidden Room
Guy Maddin, My Internship in Canada
Patricia Rozema, Into the Forest
What about: Anne
Émond (Les êtres chers), Paul Gross (Hyena Road), Atom Egoyan (Remember), Maxime Giroux (Felix and Meira), Léa Pool (The Passion of Augustine)
Actor in a Leading
Role:
Maxim Gaudette, Les êtres chers
Ethan Hawke, Born to
Be Blue
Patrick Huard, My Internship in Canada
Christopher Plummer, Remember
Jacob Tremblay, Room
What about: Pat
Mills (Guidance), Paul Gross (Hyena Road), Jasmin Geljo (The Waiting Room), Rossif Sutherland (River/Hyena
Road), Michael Eklund (Eadweard),
Gavin Crawford (Two 4 One), Connor
Jessup (Closet Monster), Randeep
Hooda, Beeba Boys, Jackson Martin (Sleeping
Giant), Kiefer Sutherland (Forsaken)
Actress in a Leading Role:
Céline
Bonnier, Passion of Augustine
Brie Larson, Room
Ellen Page, Into the Forest
Karelle
Tremblay, Les êtres chers
Hadas
Yaron, Felix and Meira
What about: Evan Rachel Wood (Into the Forest), Marie Brassard (Sabali), Sophie Demarais (Gurov& Anna), Chloe Rose (Hellions), Pascale Bussières (Ville Marie), Monica Bellucci (Ville-Marie), Leah Goldstein (Diamond Tongues), Nadia Litz (Big Muddy)
Actor in a Supporting
Role
Irdens Exantus, My Internship in Canada
Martin Landau, Remember
Reese Moffat, Sleeping Giant
Louis Negin, The Forbidden Room
Nick Serrino, Sleeping Giant
What about: Tom
McCamus (Room), Rossif Sutherland (Hyena Road), Roy Dupuis (The Sound of Trees), Stephen McHattie (Big Muddy), Luzer Twersky (Felix and Meira), Donald Sutherland (Forsaken), Callum Keith Rennie (Into the Forest/Born to Be Blue)
Actress in a
Supporting Role:
Joan Allen, Room
Valérie
Cadieux, Les êtres chers
Suzanne Clément, My Internship in Canada
Sarah Gadon, The Girl King
Christine Horne, Hyena Road
What about: Evan Rachel Wood (Into the Forest), Gabrielle
Rose (Two 4 One), Katie Boland (People Hold On), Balinder Johal (Beeba Boys), Sarah Allen (Beeba Boys), Zahra Bentham (Guidance)
Best Original
Screenplay:
What about: Beeba Boys, Closet Monster, Corbo, Guidance,
Gurov and Anna, Hyena Road, Passion of Augustine, Ville-Marie
Adapted Screenplay:
What about: Diary of an Old Man, La guerre des
tuques/Snowtime
Achievement in Costumes:
Born to Be Blue
The Forbidden Room
The Forbidden Room
What about: After the Ball, Passion of Augustine, Turbo Kid, The Witch, Forsaken
*Oops, my bad. I had Brooklyn here but the designer isn't Canadian.
*Oops, my bad. I had Brooklyn here but the designer isn't Canadian.
Achievement in Cinematography:
What about: Ville-Marie,
Felix and Meira, Backcountry, Beeba Boys, Big Muddy, Chorus, Les êtres chers, Hellions,
The Sound of Trees, Aloft, The Girl
King, Endorphine, The Editor
Achievement in Production
Design:
What about: Turbo Kid,
The Girl King, Endorphine
Achievement in Film
Editing:
What about: Into the Forest, Backcountry, The Editor, Hellions, Remember, Turbo Kid, Ville-Marie, Endorphine
Achievement in Make-up:
Turbo Kid
What about: The Witch,
Ville-Marie, Backcountry, Remember
Achievement in Music
– Original Score
Born to Be Blue
What about: Life, Remember,
Room, Sleeping Giant, Ville-Marie
Achievement in Music –
Original Song
Le guerre des tuques 3D (Céline Dion!)
Passion of Augustine
(could nab multiple noms)
What about: Gurov and
Anna
Achievement in Sound
Mixing
Born to Be Blue
What about: Room,
Turbo Kid
Achievement in Visual
Effects:
Turbo Kid
What about: Hellions,
The Girl King, Brooklyn
Best Documentary
Feature:
What about: Al Purdy Was Here, All the Time in the World, Howto Change the World, This Changes Everything, The Amina Profile, Invention,
Chameleon, Being Canadian, Guantanamo’s Child: Omar Khadr
Achievement in Cinematography
– Documentary
What about: Hadwin’s
Judgement
Achievement in Editing
– Documentary
What about: HURT, of the North
What are your
Canadian Screen Award Predictions?
What films are you
rooting for?
