The Canadian Screen Awards (CSAs) will reach a boiling point tonight as hockey romance “Heated Rivalry” faces off against Arctic comedy “North of North” as the year’s biggest winner.
The two leading TV nominees this year have already won sizable audiences and international acclaim. Now, it’s a question of how many trophies each will pocket by the end of the night.
The CSAs are Canada’s biggest celebration of the local film and TV industry. Sunday’s main televised awards show will be hosted by “Run the Burbs” and “Kim’s Convenience” actor and comedian Andrew Phung, and several big stars are expected to attend. Comedian Mike Myers will receive the Academy Icon Award, while breakout star Hudson Williams has an acting nomination for “Heated Rivalry” alongside his co-star François Arnaud.
Several untelevised events took place earlier in the week that put “Heated Rivalry” atop the leaderboard. The show made a sweep of all 13 awards it was nominated for at the scripted television ceremony on Saturday night, including two for creator Jacob Tierney, who picked up best direction and best writing for a drama.
“North of North” won seven awards, including best ensemble performance, best comedy direction for Zoe Hopkins and best comedy writing for Alethea Arnaquq-Baril and Stacey Aglok MacDonald.
Among the other big winners were R.T. Thorne’s postapocalyptic thriller “40 Acres” and Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol’s time-warp comedy “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie.”
While the awards are typically aren’t a major viewership draw, the breakout success of Crave’s “Heated Rivalry” and the CBC and Netflix co-production of “North of North” are expected to draw many curious onlookers.
It helps that the show can be caught on a first-of-its-kind simulcast across several major networks. The CSAs will air on Global, StackTV, CBC, CBC Gem, Crave and CTV, and will stream worldwide on CBC’s YouTube channel.
Heading into this year’s awards, “North of North” was the front-runner with 20 nominations, including best comedy series and lead performer for actor Anna Lambe.
“Heated Rivalry” followed closely with 18 nods, among them best drama series. Co-star Sophie Nélisse will receive this year’s Radius Award.
In the film categories, “40 Acres” led with 10 nominations, including best motion picture and director.
Tied with eight nominations each were the French-Canadian comedy “Follies,” horror-thriller “Honey Bunch” and “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie.”
Most of the cinema awards were handed out at a ceremony on Thursday. “40 Acres” won nine statuettes, including best feature, best original screenplay and best directing.
“Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie” won four awards, including best performance in a supporting role in a comedy for Matt Johnson, visual effects, sound mixing and best original song for “The Alphabet Song.”
The Oscar-winning stop-motion film “The Girl Who Cried Pearls” added a CSA for best animated short to its awards haul for filmmakers Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski.
