Manitoba a hit at awards show

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/09/2003 (8323 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

LOCAL television productions and performers have received nearly three dozen nominations for this year’s Gemini Awards.

The nominations, which were announced in Toronto yesterday, included multiple mentions for several locally based productions and nominations for current and former Manitobans.

The 18th Annual Gemini Awards, recognizing the best in Canadian TV, will be handed out Oct. 18 to 20 in Toronto.

The locally produced anthology The Atwood Stories led all Manitoba nominees with six, including a nomination for best dramatic series and two for best performance by an actress in a guest role (Rebecca Jenkins, Michele-Barbara Pelletier).

The CBC movie The Many Trials of One Jane Doe, which was shot in Winnipeg last year, received five nominations, including best TV movie, best performance by an actress (Wendy Crewson), best director (Jerry Ciccoritti) and best writing (Karen Walton).

Both locally based productions were co-produced by Kim Todd of Original Pictures, as was the kids’ series Guinevere Jones, which was nominated for best children’s or youth fiction program or series.

Among the other nominees with local connections were the ballet-themed children’s series The Toy Castle, which received three nominations, CBC’s It’s a Living (two nominations), W network’s cooking-with-grannies series Loving Spoonfuls (two nominations for former locals Allan Novak and David Gale), the long-running, Winnipeg-based CBC series Country Canada, the youth-oriented adventure 2030CE, The CBC Winnipeg Comedy Festival and the locally based staff of CBC News: Disclosure.

Novak also received a nomination for the comedy special The Joke’s on Us: 50 Years of CBC Satire, and former CBC Winnipeg sportscaster Scott Oake was nominated for best host or interviewer in a sports program.

The Eleventh Hour, CTV’s ratings- and budget-plagued drama series about life inside a TV newsmagazine program, leads the 18th annual Gemini Award nominations with 14, followed closely by CBC’s veteran crime series Da Vinci’s Inquest with 11.

Both dramas were also nominated in the best dramatic series category for the awards, which will be handed out at a televised black-tie gala Oct. 20.

Other top nominees include Global’s Blue Murder with nine, while the CTV fact-based movie 100 Days in the Jungle also received nine, including best TV movie and best direction for Sturla Gunnarsson.

And CBC’s TV industry satire Made In Canada got nine nods, including best comedy ensemble performance.

Maria Topalovich, president and CEO of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, which oversees the Geminis, lauded the many new faces represented in the nominees’ lists as “a reflection of the constant growth of emerging talents within Canada’s television industry.”

It was also confirmed yesterday that comic Sean Cullen — who was nominated for a Gemini for his hosting of last year’s awards show — will be back for the 2003 telecast, and he promised something really special this year.

“This year will be even more fun,” he joked at the nominations announcements. “I’ll be naked!”

A complete list of the Gemini nominees is available on-line: www.geminiawards.ca