Nominees up for local film awards
Canadian presence in film pervades the nominees for the eighth annual Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards. While foreign actors such as Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts are nominated for best acting in a Canadian film (Eastern Promises ), Canadian actor Ellen Page is up for best acting in an international film, as is the Vancouver-shot film she starred in, Juno, for best international film.

Best British Columbian film nominees include The Union, American Venus, and Confessions of an Innocent Man.

Casting director Stuart Aikins will be recognized for his devotion to the local industry with the achievement award for contribution to British Columbia film.

Sixteen Vancouver-based members of the media make up the VFCC. The winners will be announced at a ceremony at the Railway Club on Monday (February 11).

In other awards news, Videomatica’s ninth annual alternative Oscars contest is open for voting at www.videomatica.ca/alternativeoscars . B.C. films Everything’s Gone Green and Fido are up for best Canadian picture. Categories include best nonhuman actor, best villain, and worst picture. Voting closes February 24, with winners announced on February 25.

> Craig Takeuchi

Protection of Canadian TV sought
Julia Keatley, president of Vancouver’s Keatley Entertainment, was one of four representatives from the Canadian Film and Television Production Association who spoke on February 4 at the first day of the CRTC public hearing on the Canadian Television Fund Task Force Report in Gatineau, Quebec.

Keatley stated that the CFTPA “strongly opposes” the creation of two separate funding streams for Canadian TV programs, one with private-sector funding (a proposal already accepted by the CRTC) with revised criteria. In addition to an increase in Canadian Television Fund administrative costs for two separate streams, she warned that “a very real consequence could be the withdrawal of the federal government’s financial contributions to the production of quality Canadian television programs.” She also noted that “the task force itself rejected the notion of splitting the CTF into two separate corporations”.

Among the list of successful CTF–supported programs, Keatley cited Vancouver productions such as Da Vinci’s Inquest and Intelligence.

The CFTPA’s oral remarks are available at www.cftpa.ca/. A full transcription of the proceedings is available at www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/transcripts/2008/tb0204.htm .

> Craig Takeuchi

AXIUM ACQUIRED
Entertainment Partners Canada president Cheryl Nex stated in a January 29 letter included in a February 1 IATSE Local 891 news release that the company’s American affiliate has acquired the assets of bankrupt payroll company Axium International Inc. at an auction. As reported in the Straight [Jan. 24-31], eight local productions were being handled by Axium, which was operating a Vancouver office. Entertainment Partners Canada has Vancouver and Toronto offices, with affiliates in England, Japan, and the U.S.

> Craig Takeuchi

Film fest hopes to inspire activism
Facing activism burnout? Then try this weekend’s World Community Film Festival. “For people who are activists, these films are a bit of a battery recharger,” festival coordinator Erin Mullan told the Straight by phone. “I think one of the great strengths of the program this year is how many of the films focus on the way that people in many different communities are working together to make positive change.”

More than 35 documentaries from around the world, united by this year’s theme of “Rights, Reels, and Resistance”, will be screened at Langara College from Friday to Sunday (February 8 to 10).

Among the selections is The Union: The Business Behind Getting High, the directorial debut for Vancouverite Brett Harvey.

“It’s a very entertaining but very critical look at the politics behind the marijuana industry in B.C. and the vested interests there are in keeping it illegal, including the police, the pharmaceuticals, and the gangs—everybody except the general public,” Mullan explained.

She hopes viewers will leave the festival with a renewed sense of purpose. “We have a social-justice fair [at the festival] so people can connect with activist groups,” she said. “We’ll be making those connections as well so people can learn but also act.”

For more information, visit www.codev.org/filmfest/ .

> Jessica Werb

Doc chronicles B.C.’s black history
As part of Black History Month, screenings of local African-Canadian director Anthony F. Brown’s documentary Go Do Some Great Thing will highlight how approximately 800 racially persecuted African-Americans emigrated from San Francisco to the British colony of Vancouver Island in 1858. The colony’s part-black governor, Sir James Douglas, invited them to help populate the colony to prevent American annexation. That racial tolerance, however, soured when white American gold-rush prospectors spread racist attitudes here.

Brown explained by phone that his chance encounter with the granddaughter of an African-American Salt Spring Island settler inspired him to make this film. “It’s not so much, ”˜Yeah, it’d be great for other black kids to learn it,’ but it’s for all British Columbians.”

The B.C. Teachers’ Federation and the National Library of Canada, Brown said, have purchased the film.

Screenings with Q & As will be held at: SFU Harbour Centre on Sunday (February 10) in Labatt Hall (515 West Hastings Street; 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.; $5 admission); West End Community Centre (870 Denman Street; 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m., free); Hastings Community Centre (3096 East Hastings Street; 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., free) on February 17; and Britannia Community Centre (1661 Napier Street; 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m., free) on February 24.

> Craig Takeuchi