Movies about a diasporic Japanese woman’s return home for a funeral and East Vancouver drag queens have tied for the most Leo Award nominations for feature films.
Mayumi Yoshida wrote, directed, and starred in Akashi, which received 10 nominations, including Best Motion Picture. Yoshida herself is up for three Leos—for Best Director, Best Screenwriting, and Best Lead Performance—in this compelling tale of a family secret, grief, and lost love. It has already won several other prizes on the film festival circuit, including four Ovasian Awards at the Vancouver Asian Film Festival.
Akashi’s other nominations came for Best Cinematography (Jaryl Lim), Best Motion Picture Editing (Nach Dudsdeemaytha), Best Sound (Oscar Vargas, Coby Degroot), Best Production Design (Neil Colango, Yasuyo Takahashi, Isobel Baker-Smith, Madeline Kinney), Best Costume Design (Tammy Joe), and Best Hairstyling (Kaeko Fujiyama).
The other feature film to capture 10 nominations is Starwalker.
Corey Payette is nominated for Best Director and Best Screenwriting for his story about an Indigiqueer, Two-Spirit Callboy named Star (Dillan Chiblow) who learns about drag at the House of Borealis nightclub.
Starwalker‘s other Leo nominations came for Best Cinematography (Ian Mrozewski, Parham Banafsheh), Best Supporting Performance (Jeffrey Follis), Best Picture Editing (Christian Díaz Durán), Best Sound (Wes Swales, Corey Payette, Alex Penney, Sean Bayntun, Coby Degroot, Scott F. Thompson), Best Production Design (Anna Shearing, Chloe Bohonos, Jennifer Stenner, Ana Pflug), Best Costume Design (Alaia Hamer, Tiffany Bishop, Sarah Sosick, Halley Fulford), Best Make-Up (Jessica Hawkins, Brandon Wou, Victoria McNair, Isabel Cooke, Candice Harvey), and Best Hairstyling (Jessica Hawkins, Alaia Hamer, Devon Perez, Christopher Wu).
Pow wow romance secures nine nominations
Another Indigenous-themed film, Sweet Summer Pow Wow, racked up nine Leo nominations, including Best Motion Picture. Shuswap Nation comedian and actor Darrell Dennis wrote and directed this romantic drama about two Indigenous young adults who meet and fall in love on the summer pow wow circuit.
Sweet Summer Pow Wow’s other Leo nominations came for Best Direction (Dennis), Best Lead Performance (Tatyana Rose Baptiste), Best Youth Performance (Tyler Peters), Best Screenwriting (Dennis, Katya Gardner), Best Picture Editing (Gavin Andrews), Best Production Design (Lisa Hageman), Best Costume Design (Carmen Thompson), and Best Casting (Judy Lee).
The only other feature film to collect nine nominations was Protectors of the Land. It’s an action-thriller about a Native American man and his brother-in-law opposing a Mexican cartel intent on poisoning their town. Protectors of the Land was nominated for Best Direction (Lauro Chartrand-Del Valle), Best Screenwriting (Lauro Chartrand-Del Valle), Best Cinematography (Mahlon Todd Williams), Best Production Design (Rod McColl), Best Make-up (Elizabeth McLeod), Best Hairstyling (Charlene Dunn), Best Lead Performance (Tanaya Beatty), Best Stunt Coordination (Chad Sayn), and Best Stunt Performance (Wyatt Cameron, Nesta Chapman, Shane Hay, Gavan Jones, George Beatteay).
Foreigner addresses costs of assimilation
Meanwhile, Ava Maria Safai’s debut feature film, Foreigner, collected eight nominations, including Best Motion Picture. It’s a horror-drama about a teenage immigrant from Iran (Rose Dehgan) who dyes her hair blonde to try to fit in. However, this ignites a supernatural reaction from a force that personifies lost identity. Through her screenplay, Safai raises important questions about the cost of shedding one’s cultural heritage in order to assimilate.
Foreigner’s other nominations came for Best Screenwriting (Safai), Best Cinematography (Saarthak Taneja), Best Musical Score (Finka Wood), Best Production Design (Hannah Grace Nicholls), Best Costume Design (Kristi McQuade), Best Make-Up (Robby de Mesa, Michelle Stephen), and Best Casting (Maria Georgescu).
Other feature films nominated for Best Picture were What Comes Next, Holy Days, The Bearded Girl, Brother, and Surrender.
B.C. documentaries shine
Last year was a banner year for full-length documentaries by B.C. filmmakers. Leading the pack was In the Room, which received seven Leo nominations, including Best Feature Length Documentary. Produced by the National Film Board of Canada, it featured writer and director Brishkay Ahmed’s often riveting and highly emotional conversations with five Afghan women who fled to the West. They differ markedly from one another, disrupting often binary representations of women from the Central Asian country.
Ahmed, who was born in Afghanistan, is nominated for Best Direction and Best Screenwriting. In the Room was also nominated for Best Cinematography (Diana Perry), Best Picture Editing (Jessica Dymond), Best Sound (Lisa Kolisnyk, Doug Paterson, May Guimarães, Chris Hind, Yegor Irodov), and Best Musical Score (Zhovan Zoleikhapour).
Two full-length documentaries each received five nominations. Jon Chiang’s Spring After Spring is a heartwarming tale of how three remarkable Vancouver sisters were influenced by their Macau-born mother, who founded a dance company for children and youths in Chinatown. His film was nominated for Best Feature Length Documentary, Best Cinematography (Peter Planta), Best Picture Editing (Coline Debray), Best Sound (Matt Drake, Sharon Tseng, Ramsay Bourquin), and Best Musical Score (Caleb Chan, Brian Chan).
B.C. director travels to Bosnia
The other film, The Track, was nominated for Best Feature Length Documentary, Best Direction (Ryan Sidhoo), Best Picture Editing (Graham Withers, Ryan Sidhoo), Best Sound (Oscar Vargas, Troy Slocum), and Best Musical Score (Edo van Breeman, Johannes Winkler). Sidhoo’s documentary revolves around three Bosnian teenager with Olympic dreams. They practise on a damaged luge track from the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Games because they can’t afford anything better than that. The Track won the TIDES Award for Outstanding Canadian Documentary at the Vancouver International Film Festival.
Michael Hamilton’s Tootoo and Jenn Strom’s The Painted Life of E.J. Hughes each received four nominations, including Best Feature Length Documentary and Best Direction. Don Millar’s Loot: a Story of Crime and Redemption about the black market trade in Cambodian antiquities also received four nominations, including Best Feature Length Documentary.
The two other films nominated for Best Feature Length Documentary were Jennifer Chiu’s Clan of the Painted Lady and Pollyanna Hardwicke-Brown’s Bif Naked. Chiu is also up for a Best Director Leo for her film about multi-generational migration of Hakka people around the world, including her family’s journey from Kolkata to Vancouver.
The Leo Awards are a project of the Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Foundation of British Columbia. The full list of nominations is available at LeoAwards.com. The foundation will announce the winners on July 4 and 5 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Vancouver.
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