This year’s Leo Awards boasts eight nominees in the Best BC-made Motion Picture category: Josh Epstein and Kyle Rideout’s biopic Eadweard, about 19th-century-photographer, cinema pioneer and murderer Eadweard Muybridge, leads with 15 nominations overall; Jason Bourque’s bloody thriller Black Fly has 10; Andrew Huculiak elegiac Violent has 9; Carl Bessai, Aaron Brooks and Dustin Milligan’s 1970s cops parody Bad City has 9; Sonja Bennett’s fake pregnancy comedy Preggoland has 6; Maureen Bradley’s Two 4 One has 6; Clif Prowse and Derek Lee’s horror thriller Afflicted has 5; and Hector & the Search for Happiness has 5 . The other big nominee — but not for Best Motion Picture — is Grace: the Possession with 9 nominations.
Eadweard:
Vancouver filmmakers Josh Epstein and Kyle Rideout’s first feature-length film is an ambitious biopic about 19th-century-photographer, cinema pioneer and murderer Eadweard Muybridge played by Michael Eklund. Muybridge got away with killing his wife’s lover as the last American to ever be acquitted on the grounds of justifiable homicide for such a crime.
If my eyes are to be believed #Eadweard just received 15 @leoawards nominations. #Leoawards @KyleRideout @MichaelEklund
— Josh Epstein (@joshepstein1) May 12, 2015
Josh Epstein is nominated for co-writing the film; Kyle Rideout for directing, co-writing and production design; Michael Eklund for lead performance; Christopher Heyerdahl for supporting performance; Tony Mirza for cinematography; plus eight other nominations.
Related:Vancouver Indie Eadweard Stars Michael Eklund as Photographer, Cinema Pioneer & Murderer.
Black Fly:
Sometimes You Shouldn’t Go Home.
Touted as Canada’s Winter Bone, Black Fly is about a troubled teen Jake Henson (Dakota Daulby), haunted by the death of his parents – the father seemingly in a hunting accident and mother by suicide. Jake escapes an abusive uncle in Pitt Meadows to reconnect with his older brother Noel (Matthew MacCaull), living with his girlfriend (Christie Burke) in the family farmhouse on isolated Denman Island on the BC coast. The drama unfolds as it becomes clear that Jake has gone from bad to worse, since Noel is a heavy drinker with a hair-trigger temper and there’s no escape from his killing rampage. Black Fly will screen at Cannes as part of Perspectives Canada.
Photo credit: Chris Helcermanas-Benge.
Jason Bourque is nominated for directing and writing the film; Dakota Daulby, Matthew Maccaull and Christie Burke for lead performances; Mahlon Todd Williams for cinematography; Rob Nielson for picture editing; plus two other nominations.
Related: World Premiere of Black Fly at Vancouver International Film Festival.
Violent:
I’m realizing how quickly I can die. How quickly this could all be over. And it’s in this realization where everything becomes clear. It feels like happiness. It feels like remembering faces and words. It feels like water. It feels like electricity. It sounds like a humming fridge.
Violent is not about violence, says Vancouver director and We Are The City drummer Andrew Huculink.. Rather, Violent signifies a big, abrupt change like what happens to lead character Dagny (Norwegian actress Dagny Backer Johnsen), alluded to throughout the narrative. We Are The City originally went to Bergen, Norway to shoot a music video for their new album Violent of the same name, but somehow ended up making this haunting, elegiac film which won Best Canadian Film and Best BC Film at the Vancouver International Film Festival.
Andrew Huculiak is nominated for directing, co-writing and musical score; Cayne Mckenzie for co-writing and musical score; Joseph Schweers for cinematography, picture editing and visual effects; plus two other nominations.
Bad City:
Bad City is filmmakers Carl Bessai, Aaron Brooks and Dustin Milligan’s Vancouver parody of classic 1970s cop shows and movies with Brooks as Detective Franky New Guinea and Milligan as Detective Reverend Grizzly Night-Bear. These buddy cops take down the corrupt new Mayor — David Cubitt as Dominic Kincaid — to bring peace, love and justice to Bad City. Pitched as a cross between Dirty Harry, Starsky and Hutch and Superfly, the film was directed by Bessai. I caught a late night screening at the Whistler Film Festival last year, but it’s screening this Friday at the Rio Theatre in Vancouver, with Bessai, Milligan (in costume as his detective character), Brooks and Amanda Crew.
[sz-youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meu6dUgD1rA” /]
Carl Bessai is nominated for directing; Aaron Brooks for lead performance; Sabrina Pitre for picture editing.
Preggoland:
Jacob Tierney directs Preggoland but this fake pregnancy comedy belongs to Vancouver actor Sonja Bennett who wrote the screenplay and stars as 35-year-old grocery worker Ruth, who pretends to be pregnant after being de-friended by all her friends after trainwreck behaviour at a baby shower. James Caan is the deliriously-happy-father-who-thinks-he’s-going-to-be-a-grandfather. Danny Trejo (Machete) plays against type as a doctor-who-can’t-practice-in-North-America who blackmails Ruth to keep his job as a grocery store cleaner. Preggoland filmed most of this movie in Maple Ridge except for the final day of shooting in April last year when crew careened around Vancouver from the Gossip nightclub downtown to a Commercial Drive park to Spanish Banks.
Preggoland debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival last September to good reviews, was voted most popular Canadian film at the Vancouver International Film Festival a month later and is in theatres this year.
Sonja Bennett is nominated for screen writing the film and her lead performance; Denise Jones and Lisa Durupt for supporting performances, plus one other nomination.
Two 4 One:
Maureen Bradley’s Victoria comedy Two 4 One is about Adam (Gavin Crawford)’s night in bed with an ex-girlfriend who’s trying to get pregnant with a donor’s sperm. The twist: Adam is partway through transitioning from female to male, but isn’t quite there yet. So he gets pregnant to the delight of his mother (Gabrielle Rose).
Maureen Bradley is nominated for directing and screenwriting of the film; Gabrielle Rose for supporting performance, plus one other nomination.
Afflicted:
Vancouver filmmakers Clif Prowse and Derek Lee developed their feature film debut Afflicted as a web series where they would play themselves on a worldwide year-long backpacking adventure told through a video travel blog and use all their real social media accounts to facilitate a “real-people-in-a-real-situation” docu-style drama. The two BFFs go skydiving and cross off several other items on their Bucket Lists in Europe until one night in Paris when the film takes a sharp turn into horror as Derek is attacked after taking the wrong girl home and starts to exhibit bizarre symptoms like an allergy to sunlight and superhuman speed and strength. Could Derek be turning into a vampire?
Derek Lee is nominated for his lead performance; Clif Prowse for supporting performance; Greg Ng for picture editing; and Lauro Chartrand for stunt coordination.
Related: Vancouver’s Own Horror Thriller Afflicted from Filmmakers Clif Prowse & Derek Lee.
Hector and the Search for Happiness
Partly filmed-in-Vancouver British dramedy starring Simon Pegg as psychiatrist travelling the world in search of happiness.
Michael Diner and James Wilcock are nominated for production design; Dan Mangan, Jesse Zubot for musical score; plus two more nominations.
The Leo Awards
Saturday, June 6th: Celebration Awards Ceremony One at Westin Bayshore.
Saturday, June 13th: Celebration Awards Ceremony Two at Hotel Vancouver.
Sunday, June 14th: Gala Awards Ceremony at Hotel Vancouver.