The news in Canada today is full of filmmaking and awards — not always awards for filmmaking, but honours that show how film has a unique way of capturing what’s special, both good and bad, about life in this country.
The Governor-General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts have been announced today; to see a complete list of winners, click here. Also announced: “The Canada Council has commissioned short films on each of the winners, directed by award-winning Canadian filmmakers. The films are available on the Canada Council and the Independent Media Arts Alliance websites and at film festivals throughout the year. Travelers on Air Canada will also be able to view them on the company’s in-flight entertainment system starting in May 2015.” To watch the short films, which showcase the filmmakers’ art as much as the subjects’, click here.
A CBC Saskatchewan Future 40 Award has gone to documentary filmmaker Candy Fox. Her latest film, Backroads, was named one of Canada’s Top Ten Student Films at the TIFF and also earned several awards at the Living Skies Student Film Festival with its compelling exploration of a woman’s survival of abuse. Read about it here.
Filmmakers Jeff and Sue Turner, creators of many award-winning nature documentaries (including The Buffalo Wolves and The Edge of Eden) have spent a year following the fortunes of a Kermode bear and her two cubs through the coastal rainforest of BC and making Spirit Bear Family, which will premiere on Thursday (March 26th) at 9:00 PM on CBC. Read about it here, and see Chelsea Turner’s account of working on the project with her parents here at the WWF blog.
(Photo credit: Haplochromis, Wikimedia Commons)